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Continuous monitoring of cardiovascular parameters like pulse wave velocity (PWV), blood pressure wave (BPW), stiffness index (SI), reflection index (RI), mean arterial pressure (MAP), and cardio-ankle vascular index (CAVI) has significant clinical importance for the early diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). Standard approaches, including echocardiography, impedance cardiography, or hemodynamic monitoring, are hindered by expensive and bulky apparatus and accessibility only in specialized facilities. Moreover, noninvasive techniques like sphygmomanometry, electrocardiography, and arterial tonometry often lack accuracy due to external electrical interferences, artifacts produced by unreliable electrode contacts, misreading from placement errors, or failure in detecting transient issues and trends. Here, we report a bio-compatible, flexible, noninvasive, low-cost piezoelectric sensor for continuous and real-time cardiovascular monitoring. The sensor, utilizing a thin aluminum nitride film on a flexible Kapton substrate, is used to extract heart rate, blood pressure waves, pulse wave velocities, and cardio-ankle vascular index from four arterial pulse sites: carotid, brachial, radial, and posterior tibial arteries. This simultaneous recording, for the first time in the same experiment, allows to provide a comprehensive cardiovascular patient's health profile. In a test with a 28-year-old male subject, the sensor yielded the SI = 7.1 ± 0.2 m/s, RI = 54.4 ± 0.5 %, MAP = 86.2 ± 1.5 mmHg, CAVI = 7.8 ± 0.2, and seven PWVs from the combination of the four different arterial positions, in good agreement with the typical values reported in the literature. These findings make the proposed technology a powerful tool to facilitate personalized medical diagnosis in preventing CVDs., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declared that they have no conflicts of interest to this work., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Hybrid organic-inorganic perovskites (PVKs) are among the most promising materials for optoelectronic applications thanks to their outstanding photophysical properties and easy synthesis. Herein, a new PVK-based thermochromic composite is demonstrated. It can reversibly switch from a transparent state (transmittance > 80%) at room temperature to a colored state (transmittance < 10%) at high temperature, with very fast kinetics, taking only a few seconds to go from the bleached to the colored state (and vice versa). X-ray diffraction, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, differential scanning calometry, rheological, and optical measurements carried out during heating/cooling cycles reveal that thermochromism in the material is based on a reversible process of PVK disassembly/assembly mediated by intercalating polymeric chains, through the formation and breaking of hydrogen bonds between polymer and perovskite. Therefore, differently from other thermochromic perovskites, that generally work with the adsorption/desorption of volatile molecules, the system is able to perform several heating/cooling cycles regardless of environmental conditions. The color and transition temperature (from 70 to 120 °C) can be tuned depending on the type of perovskite. Moreover, this thermochromic material is printable and can be deposited by cheap techniques, paving the way for a new class of smart coatings with an unprecedented range of colors., (© 2023 The Authors. Advanced Materials published by Wiley-VCH GmbH.)

Hybrid perovskites are among the most promising materials for optoelectronic applications. Their 2D crystalline form is even more interesting since the alternating inorganic and organic layers naturally forge a multiple quantum-well structure, leading to the formation of stable excitonic resonances. Nevertheless, a controlled modulation of the quantum well width, which is defined by the number of inorganic layers (n) between two organic ones, is not trivial and represents the main synthetic challenge in the field. Here, a conceptually innovative approach to easily tune n in lead iodide perovskite single-crystalline flakes is presented. The judicious use of potassium iodide is found to modulate the supersaturation levels of the precursors solution without being part of the final products. This allows to obtain a fine tuning of the n value. The excellent optical quality of the as synthesized flakes guarantees an in-depth analysis by Fourier-space microscopy, revealing that the excitons orientation can be manipulated by modifying the number of inorganic layers. Excitonic out-of-plane component, indeed, is enhanced when "n" is increased. The combined advances in the synthesis and optical characterization fill in the picture of the exciton behavior in low-dimensional perovskite, paving the way to the design of materials with improved optoelectronic characteristics., (© 2021 The Authors. Advanced Materials published by Wiley-VCH GmbH.)

E-textiles represent an emerging technology aiming toward the development of fabric with augmented functionalities, enabling the integration of displays, sensors, and other electronic components into textiles. Healthcare, protective clothing, fashion, and sports are a few examples application areas of e-textiles. Light-emitting textiles can have different applications: sensing, fashion, visual communication, light therapy, etc. Light emission can be integrated with textiles in different ways: fabricating light-emitting fibers and planar light-emitting textiles or employing side-emitting polymer optical fibers (POFs) coupled with light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Different kinds of technology have been investigated: alternating current electroluminescent devices (ACELs), inorganic and organic LEDs, and light-emitting electrochemical cells (LECs). The different device working principles and architectures are discussed in this review, highlighting the most relevant aspects and the possible approaches for their integration with textiles. Regarding POFs, the methodology to obtain side emissions and the critical aspects for their integration into textiles are discussed in this review. The main applications of light-emitting fabrics are illustrated, demonstrating that LEDs, alone or coupled with POFs, represent the most robust technology. On the other hand, OLEDs (Organic LEDs) are very promising for the future of light-emitting fabrics, but some issues still need to be addressed.

Our personal series of 20 cases of focal nodular hyperplasia (FNH) of the liver is presented. All lesions were studied with computed tomography (CT), 16 of which with surgical control. Retrospective evaluation of the CT features of the identified FNH, along with those of five hepatocellular adenomas (HCA) and 30 hepatocellular carcinomas (HCC), allowed the definition of specific patterns leading to a correct characterization of FNH in 78% of cases. This greatly reduced the diagnostic errors, with the sole exception of patients with fatty liver in whom nuclear medicine may eventually provide a correct characterization. Fine-needle biopsy is thus only necessary in the dubious cases. A precise diagnostic workup of FNH is necessary, since it may avoid the surgical intervention.