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Nowadays there is a worldwide growing interest in the Inkjet Printing technology owing to its potentially high levels of geometrical complexity, personalization and resolution. There is also social concern about usage, disposal and accumulation of plastic materials. In this work, it is shown that sugar-based biodegradable polyurethane polymers exhibit outstanding properties as polymer-matrix for gold nanoparticles composites. These materials could reach exceptional stabilization levels, and demonstrated potential as novel robust inks for Inkjet based Printing. Furthermore, a physical comparison among different polymers is discussed based on stability and printability experiments to search for the best ink candidate. The University of Seville logo was printed by employing those inks, and the presence of gold was confirmed by ToF-SIMS. This approach has the potential to open new routes and applications for fabrication of enhanced biomedical nanometallic-sensors using stabilized AuNP.

Three-dimensional lattices have applications across a range of fields including structural lightweighting, impact absorption and biomedicine. In this work, lattices based on triply periodic minimal surfaces were produced by polymer additive manufacturing and examined with a combination of experimental and computational methods. This investigation elucidates their deformation mechanisms and provides numerical parameters crucial in establishing relationships between their geometries and mechanical performance. Three types of lattice were examined, with one, known as the primitive lattice, being found to have a relative elastic modulus over twice as large as those of the other two. The deformation process of the primitive lattice was also considerably different from those of the other two, exhibiting strut stretching and buckling, while the gyroid and diamond lattices deformed in a bending dominated manner. Finite element predictions of the stress distributions in the lattices under compressive loading agreed with experimental observations. These results can be used to create better informed lattice designs for a range of mechanical and biomedical applications. (C) 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

The UK National Quantum Technology Hub in Sensors and Metrology is one of four flagship initiatives in the UK National of Quantum Technology Program. As part of a 20-year vision it translates laboratory demonstrations to deployable practical devices, with game-changing miniaturized components and prototypes that transform the state-of-the-art for quantum sensors and metrology. It brings together experts from the Universities of Birmingham, Glasgow, Nottingham, Southampton, Strathclyde and Sussex, NPL and currently links to over 15 leading international academic institutions and over 70 companies to build the supply chains and routes to market needed to bring 10-1000x improvements in sensing applications. It seeks, and is open to, additional partners for new application development and creates a point of easy open access to the facilities and supply chains that it stimulates or nurtures.

Objective: To determine which simple index of overweight and obesity is the best discriminator of cardiovascular risk factors. Study Design and Setting: This is a meta-analysis of published literature. MEDLINE was searched. Studies that used receiver-operating characteristics (ROC) curve analysis and published area under the ROC curves (AUC) for overweight and obesity indices with hypertension, type-2 diabetes, and/or dyslipidemia were included. The AUC for each of the four indices, with each risk factor, was pooled using a random-effects model; male and female data were analyzed separately. Results: Ten studies met the inclusion criteria. Body mass index (BMI) was the poorest discriminator for cardiovascular risk factors. Waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) was the best discriminator for hypertension, diabetes, and dyslipidemia in both sexes; its pooled AUC (95% confidence intervals) ranged from 0.67 (0.64, 0.69) to 0.73 (0.70, 0.75) and from 0.68 (0.63, 0.72) to 0.76 (0.70, 0.81) in males and females, respectively. Conclusion: Statistical evidence supports the superiority of measures of centralized obesity, especially WHtR, over BMI, for detecting cardiovascular risk factors in both men and women. © 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.