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Introduction: The concept of "life engagement" encompasses several aspects of one's life, including personal well-being, contentment, purpose, and engagement in meaningful activities. In 2006, the group led by Scheier designed a 6-item scale to measure this concept in the general population: the Life Engagement Test (LET), however, this tool was never validated in clinical populations (Scheier et al. 2006 J Clin Psychiatry 2006; 29 291-298). In subjects living with schizophrenia life engagement can be measured through the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale-Life Engagement (PANSS-LE), derived by isolating 11 items (i.e., N01, N02, N03, N04, N05, N06, G06, G07, G13, G15, G16) from the PANSS (Correll et al. 2022 J Clin Psychiatry 2022; 83-4) (Correll et al. 2022 J Clin Psychiatry 2022; 83-5). Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate the clinical and functional correlates of two different measures of life engagement in a cohort of individuals living with schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSD). Methods: Ninety-five subjects living with SSD recruited from the ASST Spedali Civili of Brescia (Italy) were included in the preliminary ad-interim analysis of the present study: for each patient information regarding the clinical presentation were measured with the Clinical Global Impression (CGI) scale, the Health of the Nation Outcome Scales (HoNOS), the Brief Negative Symptoms Scale (BNSS) and the PANSS; additionally, information related to the psychosocial functioning were collected through the Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) scale; finally, life engagement was evaluated through the LET and the PANSS-LE. Spearman's correlations were performed using SPSS v28 and p values < 0.05 were considered significant. Results: Both the LET and the PANSS-LE were correlated with the CGI (p=0.002 and p<0.001 respectively), but only the PANSS-LE was found to be correlated with the GAF (p<0.001), the BNSS (p<0.001) and the HoNOS (p<0.001). Conclusions: The concept of life engagement is of growing interest for healthcare professionals working in the mental health field, in line with the concept of reaching a full functional recovery and considering patient-reported outcomes. From our study it is evident that life engagement in individuals living with SSD is better characterized through the PANSS-LE rather than the LET, as the former is more specific to define the complexity of the SSD symptomatology. Disclosure of Interest: None Declared [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The diffusion and activation of arsenic implanted into germanium at 40 keV with maximum concentrations below and above the solid solubility (8 x 1019 cm-3been studied, both experimentally and theoretically, after excimer laser annealing (λ = 308 nm) in the melting regime with different laser energy densities and single or multiple pulses. Arsenic is observed to diffuse similarly for different fluences with no out-diffusion and no formation of pile-up at the maximum melt depth. The diffusion profiles have been satisfactorily simulated by assuming two diffusivity states of As in the molten Ge and a non-equilibrium segregation at the maximum melt depth. The electrical activation is partial and decreases with increasing the chemical concentration with a saturation of the active concentration at 1 x 1020 cm-3, which represents a new record for the As-doped Ge system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The activation mechanism in phosphorous implanted silicon under excimer laser irradiation is investigated. The activation efficiency in the solid phase has been measured in a wide range of irradiation conditions, tuning the laser fluence in the sub-, partial, and total melting regime. Moreover, fixing the fluence, the activation as a function of the shot number has been analyzed. The total active fraction varies by several orders of magnitude and shows a complex trend depending on the process conditions. Our model, based on the interaction between defects and the active/inactive impurities, explains this scenario. In particular, it predicts experimental P active profiles, thus demonstrating that the status of the defect system rules the activation phenomenon, where the coupling between dopant and defect clusters at the early irradiation stage plays a crucial role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interaction between indium and boron coimplanted in silicon has been investigated. In particular, the effects of the coimplantation on the diffusion and the electrical activation have been studied in comparison with the single B or In implanted samples. It is shown that, by means of coimplantation, it is possible to obtain p-type carrier concentration profiles with a concentration peak higher than the ones achievable by the single In doping, but with the further advantage of a shallower carrier distribution with respect to the single B implant. It is found that this is due to the formation of In–B complexes with an acceptor level deeper than the one related to substitutional B. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work we investigate the diffusion and the electrical activation of In atoms implanted into silicon with energies ranging from 40 to 360 keV and doses of 5 × 10[SUP12] and 5 ×10[SUP13]In/cm[SUP2] during rapid thermal processing. Our investigation shows a clear dependence of In outdiffusion and electrical activation on the implant depth. For a fixed dose, the electrical activation was found to increase with the implant energy. We propose that the data can be explained by considering the balance between the local In concentration and the C background. The occurrence of coupling between the C present in the substrate and the implanted In, depending on the C/In ratio, may in fact give rise to significant formation of C-In complexes. Such complexes play a role in the enhanced electrical activation due to the shallower level they introduce into the Si band gap (E[SUBν + 0.111 eV), with respect to the rather deep level (E[SUBν] + 0.156 eV) of In alone [R. Baron et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 30, 594 (1977); R. Baron et al., ibid. 34, 257 (1979)]. The interaction of In atoms with the C background inside the silicon substrate has been, therefore, identified as the most likely origin of this behavior. In and C coimplantation has also been studied in this work, in order to further investigate the key role of C in the increase of electrical activation. A large increase of electrical activation has been detected in the coimplanted samples, up to a factor of about 8 after annealing at 900°C. However, C precipitation occurs at 1100°C, and has dramatic effects on the carrier concentration that falls by even two orders of magnitude. This limits the maximum thermal budget that can be used for In activation in C coimplanted material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arsenic implants performed in Si at ultralow energy have been extensively studied with structural, chemical, and electrical analysis. The near-surface damage annealing and its influence on the electrical activation of ultrashallow As in Si as a function of the anneal ambient has been investigated. Double alignment medium energy ion scattering, high resolution transmission electron microscopy, and low energy secondary ion mass spectrometry have been used to assess the dopant behavior and crystal recovery in the near-surface regions. The electrical activation of As in Si has been measured with spreading resistance profiling, four point probe, and van der Pauw methods. Major redistribution of the dopant into the SiO[sub 2]–Si interface region occurred during crystal regrowth of the damaged Si layer. An inactive meta-stable As solid solution was formed in the near-surface region after amorphous layer regrowth. Electrical activation of the dopant occurred upon dissociation of the As solid solution, when the dopant concentration fell to the steady state level. The As diffusion observed has been shown to be enhanced for short (10 s) anneal times at 1100 °C. When annealing at high temperature in an oxidizing ambient the dopant is retained at a high concentration in the solid and a higher level of electrical activation is observed. Significant outdiffusion of the dopant is observed during high temperature annealing in nonoxidizing conditions which reduced the level of activation. © 2001 American Institute of Physics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic altered lifestyles and impacted mental health of many adults. Engaging in physical activity, avoiding prolonged sitting, and consuming a healthy diet improve mental health. The current study investigated the association between health-related lifestyle behaviors on feelings of anxiety and depression in adults during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: Adults (n=796) living in the United States completed an internet-based survey in Spring 2020 that included validated survey instruments for moods, physical activity, sitting and dietary behaviors. Multivariate multiple regression models were used to assess the association between health-related lifestyle behaviors and feelings of anxiety and depression. Results: A majority (70.7%; 95% CI: [0.607, 0.807]) of participants met physical activity (PA) guidelines, 43.7% (95% CI: [0.287, 0.587]) sat for ≥ 8 hours per day, and 87.7% (95% CI [0.807, 0.947]) ate a healthy diet. Our final models explained 6.2% and 9.8% of the variance in anxiety and depression, respectively. Vigorous PA (anxiety: B=-0.111, 95% CI: [-0.171,0.000]; depression: B=-0.111, 95% CI: [-0.186,-0.037]) and dietary behaviors (anxiety: B=-0.112, 95% CI: [-0.180,-0.444]; depression: B=-0.112, 95% CI: [-0.213,-0.076]) were associated with reduced feelings of anxiety and depression while sitting time (anxiety: B=0.119, 95% CI: [0.000,0.199]; depression: B=0.119, 95% CI: [0.199,0.199]) were associated with greater feelings of anxiety and depression. Conclusion: Engaging in vigorous physically activity, reducing sitting time, and consuming a healthy diet was associated with reduced feelings of anxiety and depression during the early part of the pandemic. The aforementioned modifiable lifestyle behaviors are independent of each other suggesting improvements in one behavior may improve feelings of anxiety and depression.

Grit has been associated with feelings of energy when measured as the opposite end of fatigue. During the COVID-19 pandemic, grit has been linked to positive health-related behaviors, which are known to influence feelings of energy and fatigue. The objective of this study was to identify the association between grit, time spent sitting, physical activity (PA), and feelings of mental and physical energy (ME, PE) and fatigue (MF, PF) during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. Participants (n = 859) completed surveys once. Using a series of multivariate regression models, we assessed the association between grit, time spent sitting, PA and ME, MF, PE, and PF. When accounting for all factors, performing vigorous PA was associated positively with PE and ME and negatively with PF and MF, whereas sitting was related negatively with PE and ME and positively with PF and MF. Grit was not associated with the four moods. Study findings underscore the need to adopt healthy lifestyle behavior to improve feelings of energy and fatigue in the face of a pandemic. During this ongoing global health crisis, these findings present novel and important evidence with possible immediate applications for health behavior, such as informing already-established health behavior theories to, ultimately, design COVID-19-specific interventions.