Credit: UrFU
Bribery in the public healthcare does not solve the problem of poor quality of services, and even exacerbates it, researchers argue. The same can be said about the well-being of patients and their own assessment of health. In other words, bribes in the healthcare do not provide good quality services and do not pay off. Such conclusions were reached by an international team of researchers, including Olga Popova, the article s co-author, an associate professor at the Ural Federal University (UrFU, Russia).
Researchers examined survey data on 41,000 citizens from 28 post-communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe, as well as the former Soviet republics, including Russia (information provided by the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development). The research results were published at the
Credit: UrFU / Anastasia Farafontova
Scientists at the Ural Federal University (UrFU, Russia) have created clay bricks that are able to attenuate ionizing radiation to a level that is safe for the human body. To the composition of bricks scientists add waste from the industry, which protects against radiation. The article describing the technology was published in the journal
Applied Radiation and Isotopes. Bricks are a relatively cheap and convenient material with which we can quickly erect protective rooms, structures, walls around objects with radiation, says scientific head of the project, associate professor of the Department of Nuclear Power Plants and Renewable Energy Sources at UrFU Oleg Tashlykov. The bricks are alloyed with heavy metals - wastes from the metallurgical enterprises. These substances have pronounced radiation-protective properties. Thus, we solve two problems at once. First, by adding crushed absorbers of ionizing radiation to the matrix, in this case
Credit: UrFU / Victoria Maltseva.
Physicists at the Ural Federal University (UrFU, Ekaterinburg, Russia) will print unique magnets, magnetic systems, soft magnetic elements with a 3D printer. Samples made with this printer can be useful in almost any field from medicine to space. For example, it can be used by robotic surgical assistants to unclog arteries and veins or to place stents. According to Aleksey Volegov, associate professor of the Department of magnetism and magnetic nanomaterials at the UrFU, now scientists are deciding which kind of magnets they will start printing first. These will be magnets based on either samarium or cobalt compounds. They can be used in submarines, at space stations, on ships. That is, in those areas where there are very strong temperature changes and we need magnets with special properties in terms of stability, said Aleksey Volegov. Or it will be simple magnets based on an alloy of neodymium, iron, and boron, which work at normal temperatures