The Effect of Park and Urban Environments on Coronary Artery Disease Patients: A Randomized Trial

© 2015 Regina Grazuleviciene et al. Aim. To test the hypothesis that walking in a park has a greater positive effect on coronary artery disease (CAD) patients' hemodynamic parameters than walking in an urban environment. Methods. Twenty stable CAD patients were randomized into two groups: 30-minute walk on 7 consecutive days in either a city park or busy urban street. Wilcoxon signed-rank test was employed to study short-term (30 min) and cumulative changes (following 7 consecutive days of exposure) in resting hemodynamic parameters in different environments. Results. There were no statistically significant differences in the baseline and peak exercise systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), heart rate (HR), exercise duration, or HR recovery in urban versus park exposure groups. Seven days of walking slightly improved all hemodynamic parameters in both groups. Compared to baseline, the city park group exhibited statistically significantly greater reductions in HR and DBP and increases in exercise duration and HR recovery. The SBP and DBP changes in the urban exposed group were lower than in the park exposed group. Conclusions. Walking in a park had a greater positive effect on CAD patients' cardiac function than walking in an urban environment, suggesting that rehabilitation through walking in green environments after coronary events should be encouraged

Electrochemical cross-linking of carbazole derivatives: a new route for bulk heterojunction based on semi-interpenetrating polymer networks

Electrochemical behaviors of different pendant carbazole based oligomers have been studied for the realization of electroactive tridimensional structures. 3-substitution by hydrazone functional groups onto the pendant carbazole moieties increases the electron donor properties of the electroactive units. Electrochemical oxidation of thin films of the oligomer precursors deposited onto electrode ensures the formation of a cross-linked structure by in situ anodic coupling with the formation of biscarbazole redox sites. When the electrochemical cross-linking of the oligomers is realized in the presence of the electron acceptor polyimide (perylene based), we form a semi-interpenetrating polymer network (semi-IPN) coated as a thin layer. The electrochemical behavior of the semi-IPN shows two reversible oxidations and two reversible reduction peaks indicating respectively the p-doping of the biscarbazole entity and the n-doping of the perylene one. The presence of hydrazone substituents modifies the electron donor properties of the semi-IPN and should influence the electron transfer properties from biscarbazole to perylene units in bulk heterojunction solar cells

A single emitting layer white OLED based on exciplex interface emission

A new triaryl molecule based on a benzene–benzothiadiazole–benzene core has been applied in a WOLED device. This very simple molecule emits from a combination of emissive states (exciton/electromer/exciplex/electroplex) to give white light with CIE coordinates of (0.38, 0.45) and a colour temperature of 4500 K