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  • articleOpen Access

    Validity and feasibility of using a seated push-up test among community-dwelling older adults

    Background: Older individuals face a high risk of mobility and body composition decline, which can affect their independence. In light of a current uncertain healthcare situation created by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, healthcare paradigm has been shifted with increased demand for a practical measure to promote standard home healthcare services for all individuals, including older adults.

    Objective: This study explored the feasibility and validity of seated push-up tests (SPUTs) as clinical measures to reflect the body composition, muscle strength, and mobility among community-dwelling older individuals, aged 65 years (n=82).

    Methods: Participants were cross-sectionally assessed using SPUTs with various demanding forms, including the 1-time SPUT (1SPUT) along with its upper limb loading SPUT (ULL-SPUT), 5-time SPUT (5SPUT), 10-time SPUT (10SPUT), and 1-min SPUT (1minSPUT) and standard measures.

    Results: Participants who passed and failed a 1SPUT showed significant differences in the outcomes of all standard measures (p<0.05). The ULL-SPUT significantly correlated to all body composition, muscle strength, and mobility (r=0.247–0.785; p<0.05). Outcomes of 1minSPUT significantly correlated with muscle strength and mobility outcomes (r=0.306–0.526; p<0.05). Participants reported no adverse effects following the SPUTs.

    Conclusion: The findings suggest the use of the 1SPUT, ULL-SPUT, and 1minSPUT as practical measures to reflect the body composition, muscle strength, and mobility of older individuals, according to their functional levels. The tests may especially clinically benefit those with lower limb limitations and those in settings with limited space and equipment.

  • articleOpen Access

    Structural and electrical properties of ferroelectric BiFeO3/HfO2 gate stack for nonvolatile memory applications

    Difficulties in the fabrication of direct interface of ferroelectric BiFeO3 on the gate of ferroelectric field effect transistor (FeFET) is well known. This paper reports the optimization and fabrication of ferroelectric/dielectric (BiFeO3/HfO2) gate stack for the FeFET applications. RF magnetron sputtering has been used for the deposition of BiFeO3, HfO2 films and their stack. X-Ray diffraction (XRD) analysis of BiFeO3 shows the dominant perovskite phase of (104), (110) orientation at 2θ=32 at the annealing temperature of 500C. XRD analysis also confirms the amorphous nature of the HfO2 film at annealing temperature of 400C, 500C and 600C. Multiple angle analysis shows the variation ion the refractive index between 2.98–3.0214 for BiFeO3 and 2.74–2.9 for the HfO2 film with the annealing temperature. Metal/Ferroelectric/Silicon (MFS), Metal/Ferroelectric/Metal (MFM), Metal/Insulator/Silicon (MIS), and Metal/Ferroelectric/Insulator/Silicon (MFIS) structures have been fabricated to obtain the electric characteristic of the ferroelectric, dielectric and their stacks. Electrical characteristics of the MFIS structure show the memory improvement from 2.7V for MFS structure to 4.65V for MFIS structure with 8nm of buffer dielectric layer. This structure also shows the breakdown voltage of 40V with data retention capacity greater than 9×109 iteration cycles.