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Amino-acids, peptides, and protein hydrolysates, together with their coordinating compounds, have various applications as fertilizers, nutritional supplements, additives, fillers, or active principles to produce hydrogels with therapeutic properties. Hydrogel-based patches can be adapted for drug, protein, or peptide delivery, and tissue healing and regeneration. These materials have the advantage of copying the contour of the wound surface, ensuring oxygenation, hydration, and at the same time protecting the surface from bacterial invasion. The aim of this paper is to describe the production of a new type of hydrogel based on whey protein isolates (WPI), whey protein hydrolysates (WPH), and gelatin. The hydrogels were obtained by utilizing a microwave-assisted method using gelatin, glycerol, WPI or WPH, copper sulfate, and water. WPH was obtained by enzymatic hydrolysis of whey protein isolates in the presence of bromelain. The hydrogel films obtained have been characterized by FT-IR and UV-VIS spectroscopy. The swelling degree and swelling kinetics have also been determined.

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Low back pain (LBP) is one of the most common muskuloscheletal disorders. It is associated with high costs in medical assistance and indirect losses through temporary work incapacity. Therefore, it represents a challenge for medical practice.There are many types of treatments and recommendations depending on doctors' knowledge and opinions, but two protocols stand out due to their -popularity‖: the Williams and McKenzie protocols. Given the duration of flares and relapses rate, it is important to apply an efficient and lasting treatment. This is why the aim of the present study is to compare these two protocols, McKenzie and Williams, in terms of principles and exercises, in order to reveal wich one is more suitable in LBP recovery. In the end, the McKenzie protocol proved to be superior to the Williams program in terms of pain relief, lumbar mobility and number of sessions needed to recover. Another finding was that the two programs are not totally contradictory, but they are just applied in different stages of the LBP syndrome, depending on several anatomical and pathological factors.

In the present study, two of the major naturally occurring radionuclides ( 226 Ra and 222 Rn) were analyzed in water samples from shallow, medium-depth, and deep geothermal aquifers, all of which are located in Bihor County, northwestern Romania. Here, the results of radon and radium measurements, performed from 2008 to 2009 in 50 locations, are reported. Radon proved to have a wide range of activity, with values from 4.5 to 110.8 Bq l )1 for shallow aquifers, from 9.3 to 106.0 Bq l )1 for medium-depth aquifers, and from 10.1 to 34.8 Bq l )1 for deep geothermal aquifers. The shallow aquifers have lower radium concentrations (0.06 to 0.48 Bq l )1 ), compared to medium-depth aquifers (0.1 to 0.52 Bq l )1 ) and deep geothermal aquifers (0.27 to 1.8 Bq l )1 ). The principal aim was a thorough investigation into the possible correlations between the occurrence of radon and radium in different aquifers and the hydrogeological, hydrogeochemical, and geothermal features of the area. Besides the direct link between the occurrence of uranium and thorium and the 226 Ra and 222 Rn contents in groundwater, the measurements we performed have allowed us to identify a secondary control on radionuclide distributions caused by the adsorption of dissolved radium onto clay minerals in exchange for sodium (for the sandy clay aquifer of Sȃ cuieni), the high competition for adsorption sites in aquifers with high concentrations of dissolved calcium and magnesium (for the limestone dolomite aquifer of Oradea), and the role of thermal processes.

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Please cite this article as: B. Burghele, A. Ţenter, A. Cucoş, et al., The FIRST large-scale mapping of radon concentration in soil gas and water in Romania, Science of the Total Environment,