Stretchable hydrogel can be used as a 'smart bandage' and delivery vehicle for medical devices.

Engineers at MIT have developed an elastic yet sturdy hydrogel material that can be used as flexible, biocompatible wound dressing and as a smart delivery method for drugs or medical devices.

The material was designed to be embedded with medicallyuseful electronics, such as conductive wires, semiconductor chips, LED lights, and temperature sensors, according to a study published online December 7, 2015 in the journal Advanced Materials.

Electronics coated in the hydrogel could be placed not only on the surface of the skin but also inside the body—such as implanted biocompatible glucose sensors or soft, compliant neural probes, the researchers wrote.

“Electronics are usually hard and dry, but the human body is soft and wet. These two systems have drastically different properties,” said lead investigator Xuanhe Zhao, Associate Professor in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Dr. Zhao explained, “If you want to put electronics in close contact with the human body for applications such as health care monitoring and drug delivery, it is highly desirable to make the electronic devices soft and stretchable to fit the environment of the human body. That’s the motivation for stretchable hydrogel electronics.”

Current hydrogels are often brittle and made of degradable biomaterials that don’t last long, he explained. So, his team designed a hydrogel that is not only as flexible as human soft tissues, but can bond strongly to non-porous surfaces such as gold, titanium, aluminum, silicon, glass, and ceramic.

Is it really worth complaining when goods or services are not satisfactory? According to a new report from the consumer magazine Which?, it certainly is. As they point out, the old saying “if you don’t ask, you don’t get” is true for many situations, but particularly so when it comes to compensation

Mark Oakley from Norfolk wanted to buy a recordable DVD player. At the local branch of Argos, a shop which sells electrical goods, they told him that they didn’t have the one he wanted in stock, but that they were expecting a delivery soon. However, when he went back, it still hadn’t arrived. He returned twice more over the following weeks but each time they told him to come back in a week. He started phoning and trying to reserve the machine instead. But after several weeks of phoning unsuccessfully, Mr. Oakley lost patience and wrote to the managing director of Argos. Four days later someone called him and said his DVD recorder was waiting for him and that he could collect 10 recordable DVD discs to compensate for his wasted time.

Read the text below and answer the following questionbased on it.

The Healing Power of Music

What better “medicine” than a “treatment” that has only positive side effects and “therapy” that is actually enjoyable? Music is shown to have the ability to help organize the brain; especially vital to those who are afflicted with Alzheimer’s.
Studies have shown that the results of a musical therapy session last for several hours afterward. Positive results include elevated mood, increased socialization and appetite and reduction in agitation. These benefits are attributed to the stimulation the brain receives during a music therapy session, a sort of “cognitive workout”.
As speech, writing and traditional forms of communication are compromised, music provides an alternative means of maintaining a connection, thereby helping to normalize interaction between caregiver and patient. Music used therapeutically creates an environment where the patient can be nurtured and cared for in a way that is safe, gentle and appropriate. Music is central to maintaining human bonds when those with dementia have lost the ability to initiate communication or to respond verbally.

The powers of music when focused and used therapeutically are many. Critical to maintaining quality of life for those with Alzheimer’s is management of emotions and preserving the connection with others. Music is conducive to keeping those connections strong as long as possible while helping the participant to focus, increase awareness and orient to the environment. A number of research studies have looked at music therapy as an important adjunct to medical treatment and findings suggest a possible link between the use of music and slowing the progression of dementia.
Music is primal to life and expressed by each of us every day whether through dancing to a favorite tune, keeping rhythm with a pencil or remembering a special time when hearing a forgotten melody. It is central to our lives and is embedded in our culture, defining how we acknowledge milestones, rites of passage and celebrations as well as providing comfort, transformation and inspiration.
<http://www.caregiver.com/articles/print/healing_power_of_music.ht m> Acessado em 14 de abril de 2017. Adaptado

Military operations in megacities A linguistic perspective

The challenge of conducting future military operations within megacities (cities with populations over ten million) lies in understanding the dynamic and multidimensional complexities of these urban areas. Military operations in megacities, whether combat-oriented or otherwise, will be similar to those in other urban environments, but will be complicated by factors unique to the megacity environment.

First and foremost, megacities are largely multilingual. While this can be said of large cities in general, the scale of multilingualism in megacities magnifies its effects. For instance, in New York City (NYC) – a metropolitan megacity of over eighteen million people – nine foreign languages are spoken by communities of one hundred thousand or larger. Language also plays a role in determining one’s identity and the language community in which one decides to live. For example, the majority of Russian speakers in NYC tend to live in south Brooklyn and Staten Island, while Chinese speakers tend to cluster in Manhattan and Sunset Park. In megacities, language, culture, and regional context go hand in hand and often reach beyond ethnic identities.

In order to fully understand the context of a megacity, we must understand the role of the languages used in its communities. How ________(1) language communities interact in megacities? What tensions ___________(2) caused by multiple language communities in urban space? What role ___________(3) language play in the power structures (government or otherwise) of megacities?

Women taking pill more likely to be treated for depression, study finds

Millions of women worldwide use hormonal contraceptives, and there have long been reports that they can affect mood. A research project was launched in Denmark to look at the scale of the problem, involving the medical records of more than a million women and adolescent girls.

It found that those on the combined pill were 23% more likely to be prescribed an antidepressant by their doctor, most commonly in the first six months after starting on the pill. Women on the progestin-only pills, a synthetic form of the hormone progesterone, were 34% more likely to take antidepressants or get a first diagnosis of depression than those not on hormonal contraception.

The study found that not only women taking pills but also those with implants, patches and intrauterine devices were affected.

Adolescent girls appeared to be at highest risk. Those taking combined pills were 80% more likely and those on progestin-only pills more than twice as likely to be prescribed an antidepressant than their peers who were not on the pill.

The researchers, Øjvind Lidegaard of the University of Copenhagen and colleagues, point out that women are twice as likely to suffer from depression in their lifetime as men, though rates are equal before puberty. The fluctuating levels of the two female sex hormones, oestrogen and progesterone, have been implicated. Studies have suggested raised progesterone levels in particular may lower mood.

The impact of low-dose hormonal contraception on mood and possibly depression has not been fully studied, the authors say. They used registry data in Denmark on more than a million women and adolescent girls aged between 15 and 34. They were followed up from 2000 until 2013 with an average follow-up of 6.4 years.

The authors call for more studies to investigate this possible side-effect of the pill.

Text

Going on holiday?
Don’t advertise the fact that your house is empty. Do remember to cancel the milk and newspapers and also to draw curtains back. Don’t leave notes for tradesmen and try not to talk about your holidays and future plans loudly in public. Operate a “Good Neighbour” scheme to ensure that mail is taken in, the house checked regularly and that lights are put on. If you plan to be away for a long time, make sure that your lawn is cut. Call at your local police station and tell them you are going away. Make sure that they know who has your spare key and how you can be contacted in case of trouble. Especially at holiday time, don’t leave cash or valuables in the house ─ take them with you or lodge them with the bank.
(Quoted in Penny Ur. A course in language teaching)

TEXTO:

You don’t need extra minutes in your day to eat
less or to move more, the two basic pillars of weight
loss. Here’s how to reevaluate the time you do have, and
smart strategies to make dropping pounds easier, no
[5] matter how swamped you are.
Every small step you take toward a healthier lifestyle
matters, says Jeff Katula, PhD, associate professor of
health and exercise science at Wake Forest University.
“People often think they have to spend an hour at the
[10] gym or eat a diet full of hummus and superfoods, and
when they can’t attain that level they just give up and
don’t even try,” he says. Instead of looking at your whole
day as a success or failure, says Katula, consider every
decision you make a chance to do something healthy.
[15] Just because you skipped the gym doesn’t mean you
shouldn’t watch your calorie intake for the rest of the
day, for example. (In fact, it means the exact opposite!)
“You don’t need to cook your own food or even eat
different food to lose weight,” says Katula. “You just need
[20] to eat less.” Most people need to consume between 1,200
and 1,500 calories a day if they want to drop pounds in a
healthy and sustainable way — and for a lot of people,
eating appropriate portion sizes, skipping dessert, or not
going back for seconds is one of the easiest ways to
[25] reduce their total calorie intake.
Not skipping meals is crucial. This may seem
counterintuitive after advice to eat less overall, but busy
people especially may need to space out their calories
more throughout the day. That’s because going more
[30] than four or five hours without refueling can slow
metabolism, affect hormones and insulin levels, and
contribute to unhealthy food choices when you do finally
sit down to eat. “A lot of our overweight patients aren’t
necessarily overeating, but their eating patterns have
[35] become so erratic — they have a cup of coffee in the
morning and then no real food until late afternoon,” he
says. “The key is to avoid that and keep a consistent
schedule, whether that’s three meals a day and a couple
of snacks, or five mini meals.”

The Internet of Things

Read this passage which is on the phonographic disc included on the Voyager spacecraft: