How does gender influence the recognition of cardiovascular risk and adherence to self-care recommendations? : a study in polish primary care

Background: Studies have shown a correlation between gender and an ability to change lifestyle to reduce the risk of disease. However, the results of these studies are ambiguous, especially where a healthy lifestyle is concerned. Additionally, health behaviors are strongly modified by culture and the environment. Psychological factors also substantially affect engagement with disease-related lifestyle interventions. This study aimed to examine whether there are differences between men and women in the frequency of health care behavior for the purpose of reducing cardiovascular risk (CVR), as well as cognitive appraisal of this type of risk. We also aimed to identify the psychological predictors of engaging in recommended behavior for reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease after providing information about this risk in men and women. Methods: A total of 134 consecutive eligible patients in a family practice entered a longitudinal study. At initial consultation, the individual’s CVR and associated health burden was examined, and preventive measures were recommended by the physician. Self-care behavior, cognitive appraisal of risk, and coping styles were then assessed using psychological questionnaires. Six months after the initial data collection, the frequency of subjects’ self-care behavior was examined. Results: We found an increase in health care behavior after providing information regarding the rate of CVR in both sexes; this increase was greater for women than for men. Women followed self-care guidelines more often than men, particularly for preventive measures and dietary advice. Women were more inclined to recognize their CVR as a challenge. Coping style, cognitive appraisal, age, level of health behaviors at baseline and CVR values accounted for 48% of the variance in adherence to self-care guidelines in women and it was 52% in men. In women, total risk of CVD values were most important, while in men, cognitive appraisal of harm/loss was most important. Conclusions: Different predictors of acquisition of health behavior are encountered in men and women. Our results suggest that gender-adjusted motivation models influencing the recognition process need to be considered to optimize compliance in patients with CVR

Giant spin Hall effect in graphene grown by chemical vapour deposition

Advances in large-area graphene synthesis via chemical vapour deposition on metals like copper were instrumental in the demonstration of graphene-based novel, wafer-scale electronic circuits and proof-of-concept applications such as flexible touch panels. Here, we show that graphene grown by chemical vapour deposition on copper is equally promising for spintronics applications. In contrast to natural graphene, our experiments demonstrate that chemically synthesized graphene has a strong spin-orbit coupling as high as 20 meV giving rise to a giant spin Hall effect. The exceptionally large spin Hall angle ∼0.2 provides an important step towards graphene-based spintronics devices within existing complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor technology. Our microscopic model shows that unavoidable residual copper adatom clusters act as local spin-orbit scatterers and, in the resonant scattering limit, induce transverse spin currents with enhanced skew-scattering contribution. Our findings are confirmed independently by introducing metallic adatoms-copper, silver and gold on exfoliated graphene samples

Postsynaptic nigrostriatal dopamine receptors and their role in movement regulation

The article presents the hypothesis that nigrostriatal dopamine may regulate movement by modulation of tone and contraction in skeletal muscles through a concentration-dependent influence on the postsynaptic D1 and D2 receptors on the follow manner: nigrostriatal axons innervate both receptor types within the striatal locus somatotopically responsible for motor control in agonist/antagonist muscle pair around a given joint. D1 receptors interact with lower and D2 receptors with higher dopamine concentrations. Synaptic dopamine concentration increases immediately before movement starts. We hypothesize that increasing dopamine concentrations stimulate first the D1 receptors and reduce muscle tone in the antagonist muscle and than stimulate D2 receptors and induce contraction in the agonist muscle. The preceded muscle tone reduction in the antagonist muscle eases the efficient contraction of the agonist. Our hypothesis is applicable for an explanation of physiological movement regulation, different forms of movement pathology and therapeutic drug effects. Further, this hypothesis provides a theoretical basis for experimental investigation of dopaminergic motor control and development of new strategies for treatment of movement disorders

Electronic doping and scattering by transition metals on graphene

We investigate the effects of transition metals (TM) on the electronic doping and scattering in graphene using molecular-beam epitaxy combined with in situ transport measurements. The room-temperature deposition of TM onto graphene produces clusters that dope n type for all TM investigated (Ti, Fe, and Pt). We also find that the scattering by TM clusters exhibits different behavior compared to 1/r Coulomb scattering. At high coverage, Pt films are able to produce doping that is either n type or weakly p type, which provides experimental evidence for a strong interfacial dipole favoring n -type doping as predicted theoretically. © 2009 The American Physical Society

Electronic doping and scattering by transition metals on graphene

We investigate the effects of transition metals (TM) on the electronic doping and scattering in graphene using molecular-beam epitaxy combined with in situ transport measurements. The room-temperature deposition of TM onto graphene produces clusters that dope n type for all TM investigated (Ti, Fe, and Pt). We also find that the scattering by TM clusters exhibits different behavior compared to 1/r Coulomb scattering. At high coverage, Pt films are able to produce doping that is either n type or weakly p type, which provides experimental evidence for a strong interfacial dipole favoring n -type doping as predicted theoretically. © 2009 The American Physical Society

Imaging microscopic electronic contrasts at the interface of single-layer WS2 with oxide and boron nitride substrates

The electronic properties of devices based on two-dimensional materials are significantly influenced by interactions with the substrate and electrode materials. Here, we use photoemission electron microscopy to investigate the real- and momentum-space electronic structures of electrically contacted single-layer WS2 stacked on hBN, SiO2, and TiO2 substrates. Using work function and X-ray absorption imaging, we single-out clean microscopic regions of each interface type and collect the valence band dispersion. We infer the alignments of the electronic bandgaps and electron affinities from the measured valence band offsets of WS2 and the three substrate materials using a simple electron affinity rule and discuss the implications for vertical band structure engineering using mixed three- and two-dimensional materials