Cardiovascular imaging analysis is a useful tool for the diagnosis, treatment and monitoring of cardiovascular diseases. Imaging techniques allow non-invasive quantitative assessment of cardiac function, providing morphological, functional and dynamic information. Recent technological advances in ultrasound have made it possible to improve the quality of patient treatment, thanks to the use of modern image processing and analysis techniques. However, the acquisition of these dynamic three-dimensional (3D) images leads to the production of large volumes of data to process, from which cardiac structures must be extracted and analyzed during the cardiac cycle. Extraction, three-dimensional visualization, and qualification tools are currently used within the clinical routine, but unfortunately require significant interaction with the physician. These elements justify the development of new efficient and robust algorithms for structure extraction and cardiac motion estimation from three-dimensional images. As a result, making available to clinicians new means to accurately assess cardiac anatomy and function from three-dimensional images represents a definite advance in the investigation of a complete description of the heart from a single examination. The aim of this article is to show what advances have been made in 3D cardiac imaging by ultrasound and additionally to observe which areas have been studied under this imaging modality.

The world has complex mega-cities and interdependent infrastructures. This complication in infrastructure relations makes it sensitive to disasters and failures. Cascading failure causes blackouts for the whole system of infrastructures during disasters and the lack of performance of the emergency management stakeholders is clear during a disaster due to the complexity of the system. This research aimed to develop a new concurrent engineering model following the total recovery effort. The objectives of this research were to identify the clustered intervention utilized in the field of resilience and developing a cross-functional intervention network to enhance the resilience of societies during a disaster. Content analysis was employed to classify and categorize the intervention in the main divisions and sub-divisions and the grouping of stakeholders. The transposing system was employed to develop an integrated model. The result of this research showed that the operations division achieved the highest weight of information interchange during the response to improve the resilience of the system. The committee of logistics and the committee of rescue and relief needed the widest bandwidth of information flow in the concurrent engineering (CE) model. The contributed CE model helped the stakeholders provide a resilient response system. The final model and the relative share value of exchanging information for each workgroup can speed up recovery actions. This research found that concurrent engineering (CE) is a viable concept to be implemented as a strategy for emergency management. The result of this research can help policymakers achieve a collaborative teamwork environment and to improve resilience factors during emergency circumstances for critical infrastructures.

In order to explore the influence of the ferroelectric surface on the structure and properties of semiconductor oxides, the growth of CdS nanocrystals was regulated and controlled by taking single-crystal perovskite PbTiO₃ nanosheets as the substrate through a simple hydrothermal method. Through composition design, a series of PbTiO₃-CdS nanocomposite materials with different loading concentrations were prepared, and their microstructure and photocatalytic properties were systematically analyzed. Studies show that in the prepared product, CdS nanoparticles selectively grow on the surfaces of PbTiO₃ nanosheets, and their morphology is affected by the exposed surfaces of PbTiO₃ nanosheets. There is a clear interface between the PbTiO₃ substrate and CdS nanoparticles. The concentration of the initial reactant and the time of hydrothermal reaction also significantly affect the crystal morphology of CdS. Photocatalysis studies have shown that the prepared PbTiO₃-CdS nanocomposite material has a significant degradation effect on 10 mg/L of Rhodamine B aqueous solution. The degradation efficiency rises with the increase of CdS loading concentration. When degrading 10 mg/L Rhodamine B aqueous solution, the PbTiO₃-CdS sample with a mass fraction of 3% can reach a degradation rate of 72% within 120 min.

New hybrid magnetic materials based on HDPE filled with Со and Ni nanoparticles have been prepared via the metal vapor synthesis. Properties of the metal-polymer composites have been elucidated as a function of MVS parameters and metal nature. The Faraday method has been applied to characterize the magnetic properties of the systems. The microstructure of the samples has been studied with a number of X-ray and synchrotron techniques, including XRD, EXAFS and SAXS. Core-level and valence band spectra were measured by XPS. The peak at binding energy of 282.8 eV characteristic of C-Ni bond was recorded in the C 1s spectrum. It was shown that properties of nanocomposite materials with similar compositions are determined both by the synthesis conditions and post-synthesis factors.

The objective of this research is to examine the effects of income inequality, governance quality, and their interaction on environmental quality in Asian countries. Time series data are obtained from 45 Asian countries for the period 1996–2020 for this empirical analysis. The research has performed various econometric tests to ensure the robustness and reliability of the results. We have addressed different econometric issues, such as autocorrelation, heteroskedasticity, and cross-sectional dependence, using the Driscoll-Kraay (DK) standard error estimation and endogeneity issues by the system generalized method of moments (S-GMM). The results of the study revealed that income inequality and governance quality have a positive impact on environmental degradation, while the interaction of governance quality with income inequality has a negative effect on it. In addition, economic growth, population growth, urbanization, and natural resource dependency are found to deteriorate the quality of the environment. The findings of the study offer insightful policies to reduce environmental degradation in Asian countries.

Nowadays, copper and zinc nanoparticles are widely employed in a variety of applications. With nanoscale particle sizes, copper oxide/zinc oxide composite is easily synthesized using a variety of techniques, including hydrothermal, microwave, precipitation, etc. In the current work, chemical precipitation is used to create a copper oxide/zinc oxide nanocomposite. XRD analysis was used to determine the nanocomposite’s structural characteristics. Through SEM analysis, the surface morphological properties are investigated. EDAX is used to study the chemical composition of produced materials, while UV/Visible spectroscopy is used to determine their optical properties. The assessment of the copper oxide/zinc oxide nanocomposite’s degrading property on dyes like methyl red and methyl orange under UV and visible light are the main objectives of the current work.