A Comparative Analysis of Hardiness Among Different Generations in Contemporary Russia

Introduction. Studying the characteristics of hardiness among different generations merits special attention. The comparative analysis of the levels of hardiness and its individual components among representatives of Soviet, post-Soviet, and transitional generations has not been reported before. Methods. The study of hardiness among different generations employed the Hardiness Test by D. A. Leontiev and E. I. Rasskazova and involved 540 individual participants (234 men and 306 women) aged from 16 to 84 years. Results. The variance analysis was applied to reveal differences in hardiness and its structural components among the three generational groups. The levels of hardiness and its components differed significantly in the groups of respondents of the Soviet and transitional generations. Compared to the transitional generation group, the levels of control (p ≤ 0.0001), risk taking (p ≤ 0.0001), and hardiness (p ≤ 0.0001) were higher among representatives of the post-Soviet generation; the lowest levels of these variables were observed in the group of representatives of the Soviet generation. Compared to female respondents of the transitional and Soviet generations, males had higher levels of control (p ≤ 0.0001), risk taking (p ≤ 0.05) and hardiness (p ≤ 0.05). Discussion. The level of hardiness differs among generational and gender groups. The findings of the study suggest that the characteristics of hardiness should be investigated in late adulthood. This study has great potential for practical application for developing psychological programs for improving personal potential of vulnerable generations

Identification of the nature of traps involved in the field cycling of Hf₀.₅Zr₀.₅O₂-based ferroelectric thin films

The discovery of ferroelectricity in hafnium oxide has revived the interest in ferroelectric memories as a viable option for low power non-volatile memories. However, due to the high coercive field of ferroelectric hafnium oxide, instabilities in the field cycling process are commonly observed and explained by the defect movement, defect generation and field induced phase transitions. In this work, the optical and transport experiments are combined with ab-initio simulations and transport modeling to validate that the defects which act as charge traps in ferroelectric active layers are oxygen vacancies. A new oxygen vacancy generation leads to a fast growth of leakage currents and a consequent degradation of the ferroelectric response in Hf₀.₅Zr₀.₅O₂ films. Two possible pathways of the Hf₀.₅Zr₀.₅O₂ ferroelectric property degradation are discussed

Design and baseline characteristics of the finerenone in reducing cardiovascular mortality and morbidity in diabetic kidney disease trial

Background: Among people with diabetes, those with kidney disease have exceptionally high rates of cardiovascular (CV) morbidity and mortality and progression of their underlying kidney disease. Finerenone is a novel, nonsteroidal, selective mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist that has shown to reduce albuminuria in type 2 diabetes (T2D) patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) while revealing only a low risk of hyperkalemia. However, the effect of finerenone on CV and renal outcomes has not yet been investigated in long-term trials. Patients and Methods: The Finerenone in Reducing CV Mortality and Morbidity in Diabetic Kidney Disease (FIGARO-DKD) trial aims to assess the efficacy and safety of finerenone compared to placebo at reducing clinically important CV and renal outcomes in T2D patients with CKD. FIGARO-DKD is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group, event-driven trial running in 47 countries with an expected duration of approximately 6 years. FIGARO-DKD randomized 7,437 patients with an estimated glomerular filtration rate >= 25 mL/min/1.73 m(2) and albuminuria (urinary albumin-to-creatinine ratio >= 30 to <= 5,000 mg/g). The study has at least 90% power to detect a 20% reduction in the risk of the primary outcome (overall two-sided significance level alpha = 0.05), the composite of time to first occurrence of CV death, nonfatal myocardial infarction, nonfatal stroke, or hospitalization for heart failure. Conclusions: FIGARO-DKD will determine whether an optimally treated cohort of T2D patients with CKD at high risk of CV and renal events will experience cardiorenal benefits with the addition of finerenone to their treatment regimen. Trial Registration: EudraCT number: 2015-000950-39; ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT02545049

Issues of health evaluation during simulated space mission to Mars. Part 1. Research methodology and methods used in experiment Mars-500

Research methodology and methods used in experiment Mars-500 held at the Institute of Biomedical Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 2009-2011 are considered. 6 volunteers were isolated during 520 days in a sealed ground-based facility simulating space ship. Along with studies of the Martian crew, a number of satellite research were also carried out, which were devoted to the long-term program of medical and ecological investigations. This program was aimed at the study of the dynamics of adaptation abilities of the organism during its long stay in the natural social, living and industrial environments. For physiological investigations in experiment Mars-500, including the main experiment in a sealed ground-based facility and parallel long-term medical and ecological investigations in different regions of the world, the specialized hardwaresoftware complex "Ecosan-2007" was used. The methodology was based on the principles of prenosological diagnostics that have been further developed in the concept of adaptation risks and in the probabilistic approach to their evaluation. For evaluation of various components of the autonomous regulation state the method of heart rate variability (HRV) was used. It was concluded that the most important field in experiment Mars-500 was the investigation of the methodology of prenosological diagnostic in the preparation of a space mission to Mars

On the Reliability of HZO-Based Ferroelectric Capacitors: The Cases of Ru and TiN Electrodes

Despite the great potential of Hf0.5Zr0.5O2 (HZO) ferroelectrics, reliability issues, such as wake-up, fatigue, endurance limitations, imprint and retention loss, impede the implementation of HZO to nonvolatile memory devices. Herein, a study of the reliability properties in HZO-based stacks with the conventional TiN top electrode and Ru electrode, which is considered a promising alternative to TiN, is performed. An attempt to distinguish the mechanisms underlying the wake-up, fatigue and retention loss in both kinds of stacks is undertaken. Overall, both stacks show pronounced wake-up and retention loss. Moreover, the fatigue and retention loss were found to be worsened by Ru implementation. The huge fatigue was suggested to be because Ru does not protect HZO against oxygen vacancies generation during prolonged cycling. The vacancies generated in the presence of Ru are most likely deeper traps, as compared to the traps formed at the interface with the TiN electrode. Implementing the new procedure, which can separate the depolarization-caused retention loss from the imprint-caused one, reveal a rise in the depolarization contribution with Ru implementation, accompanied by the maintenance of similarly high imprint, as in the case with the TiN electrode. Results show that the mechanisms behind the reliability issues in HZO-based capacitors are very electrode dependent and simple approaches to replacing the TiN electrode with the one providing, for example, just higher remnant polarization or lower leakages, become irrelevant on closer examination

Development of space technologies and problems of “home medicine”

Experience of cosmonauts’ health monitoring shows that in the study of healthy subjects clinical approach to the evaluation of various medical and physiological data is almost less effective than the evaluation of organism adaptive abilities. The idea of prenosological diagnosis and the concept of adaptive risks develop in space medicine last years. These new space technologies are being actively tested in terrestrial studies in systems as "home medicine". The report presents three variants of systems, respectively, designed to work with a) home PC ("Ecosan-2007" and "Ecosan-TM"), b) Internet connections ("Delta 2013"), c) mobile communication channels ("Traffic Lights of Health"). The main method of functional conditions evaluation in all these systems is the heart rate variability (HRV) analysis. HRV indices allow us to construct a mathematical model and to compute the stress degree of regulatory systems, their functional reserve and adaptive risk