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INTRODUCTION: Substantial medical research has established an inverse relationship between quality of life and illness. However, there exists minimal evidence for such a connection in the context of stable and controlled diseases. OBJECTIVE: We wished to correlate multimorbidity with quality of life for elderly patients who suffer from stable chronic diseases. METHODS: We used a tool to evaluate quality of life, namely World Health Organization quality of life-BRIEF, together with a scale of multimorbidity known as the Cumulative Illness Rating Scale - Geriatric Version. Furthermore, the quality of life data were correlated with scores recorded on the Cumulative Illness Rating Scale - Geriatric Version, the number of drugs used, and individual perceptions of health and age. RESULTS: We studied 104 elderly patients who suffered from chronic diseases. The patients had exhibited neither acute events nor secondary complications, their cognition was intact, and they were functionally independent. The Cumulative Illness Rating Scale - Geriatric Version showed an inverse correlation with the physical domain (p= 0.008) and a tendency toward an inverse correlation with the psychological domain (p= 0.052). Self-perception of health showed a high correlation with the physical domain (p= 0.000), psychological domain (p= 0.000) and environmental domain (p= 0.000). The number of drugs used correlated only with the physical domain (p= 0.004). Age and social domain showed a tendency toward a positive correlation (p= 0.054). DISCUSSION: We uncovered an inverse relationship between quality of life and multimorbidity in a group of patients who suffered from stable chronic diseases, with no functional limitations, pain or complications. Our data suggest that a patient’s knowledge that they have a certain clinical condition changes their subjective assessment of quality of life in the related domain. CONCLUSION: The perceived quality of life of the sample was affected by multimorbidity in the physical domain, with a tendency toward commensurate effects in the psychological domain.

Transport properties and magnetization measurements of the K x MoO 2−␦ ͑0 Յ x Յ 0.25͒ compound are reported. The compound crystallizes in the oxygen deficient MoO 2 monoclinic structure with potassium atoms occupying interstitial positions. An unconventional metallic behavior with power-law temperature dependence is related to a magnetic ordering. Superconducting transition with small volume fraction is also observed near 7 K for a sample with low potassium composition.

Evidence of multiband behavior in the superconducting alloy Zr 0.96V0.04B2 ZrB 2 is a nonsuperconducting Pauli paramagnetic crystallizing in the AlB 2 structure. V substitution for Zr in Zr 1−x V x B 2 (0.01 x 0.1) at the few percentage level induces superconductivity with critical temperature reaching a maximum of 8.7 K for Zr 0.96 V 0.04 B 2 near the solid solubility limit. Specific-heat and lower critical field temperature dependence results suggest the possibility of unconventional superconductivity possibly arising from multiband effects.

a b s t r a c tIn the Mo-Si binary system, Mo 5 Si 3 crystallizes in the W 5 Si 3 (T 1 phase) structure type. However, when boron replaces silicon in this compound, a structural transition occurs from the W 5 Si 3 prototype structure to the Cr 5 B 3 prototype structure (T 2 phase) at the composition Mo 5 SiB 2 . Mo 5 SiB 2 has received much attention in the literature as a candidate for structural application in high-temperature turbines, but its electronic and magnetic behavior has not been explored. In this work, we show that Mo 5 SiB 2 is a bulk superconducting material with critical temperature close to 5.8 K. The specific-heat, resistivity and magnetization measurements reveal that this material is a conventional type II BCS superconductor.

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Nb2SnC is a member of the large family of lamellar materials that crystallize in the hexagonal structure with space group P63/mmc which are isomorphs with Cr2AlC, also named H-phase. In spite of the great number of compounds which belong to this family, the superconductivity has been reported only for two cases: Mo2GaC and Nb2SC. In this work we show that superconductivity can be observed in Nb2SnC depending on the synthesis method used. The quality of the superconductor is strongly dependent of the synthesis method and the optimal results were reached for samples synthesized at 2.5 GPa and 523 +/- 50oC. This sample showed a critical temperature close to 7.8K, revealed from magnetization and transport measurement, the highest critical temperature reported up to now for an H-phase.Comment: paper with 12 pages and 4 figure

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