The Design and Ground Test Verification of an Energy-Efficient Wireless System for the Fatigue Monitoring of Wind Turbine Blades Based on Bistable Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting.

A wireless monitoring system based on piezoelectric energy harvesting (PEH) is presented to provide fatigue data of wind turbine blades in operation. The system comprises three subsystems, each respectively providing the following functions: (i) the conversion of mechanical to electric energy by exploiting the bistable vibration of a composite beam with piezoelectric patches in post-buckling, (ii) harvesting the converted energy by means of a modified, commercial, off-the-shelf (COTS) circuit to feed a LiPo battery and (iii) the battery-powered acquisition and wireless transmission of sensory signals to the cloud to be elaborated upon by the end-user. The system was verified with ground tests under representative operation conditions, which demonstrated the fulfillment of the design requirements.

Health worker education during the COVID-19 pandemic: global disruption, responses and lessons for the future-a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: This systematic review and meta-analysis identified early evidence quantifying the disruption to the education of health workers by the COVID-19 pandemic, ensuing policy responses and their outcomes.

Methods: Following a pre-registered protocol and PRISMA/AMSTAR-2 guidelines, we systematically screened MEDLINE, EMBASE, Web of Science, CENTRAL, clinicaltrials.gov and Google Scholar from January 2020 to July 2022.

Radiation quality correction factors for improved dosimetry in preclinical minibeam radiotherapy.

Background: In reference dosimetry, radiation quality correction factors are used in order to account for changes in the detector's response among different radiation qualities, improving dosimetric accuracy.

Purpose: Reference dosimetry radiation quality corrections factors for the PTW microDiamond were calculated for preclinical X-ray and proton minibeams, and their impact in dosimetric accuracy was evaluated.

Methods: A formalism for the calculation of radiation quality correction factors for absolute dosimetry in minibeam fields was developed.

Early Predictors of Clinical and MRI Outcomes Using Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (LASSO) in Multiple Sclerosis.

Objective: The objective of this study was to identify predictors in common between different clinical and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) outcomes in multiple sclerosis (MS) by comparing predictive models.

Methods: We analyzed 704 patients from our center seen at MS onset, measuring 37 baseline demographic, clinical, treatment, and MRI predictors, and 10-year outcomes. Our primary aim was identifying predictors in common among clinical outcomes: aggressive MS, benign MS, and secondary-progressive (SP)MS.

Genes, brain dynamics and art: the genetic underpinnings of creativity in dancing, musicality and visual arts.

Creativity, art and artistic creation in music, dance and visual arts are brain activities specific to humans. Their genetic background remained unexplored for years, but many recent studies have uncovered significant associations with cognition-related genes and loci. These studies are summarized in the present article.

Altered adipokine levels are associated with dimethyl fumarate treatment in multiple sclerosis patients.

Background: Obesity is linked to increased risk of multiple sclerosis (MS) and worsening disease severity. Recent experimental and clinical data indicates that adipokines are involved in regulating immune response and serve as cross talk between immune and neural system. Dimethyl fumarate (DMF) is an oral MS medication with unknown mechanism of action.

A scanning dynamic collimator for spot-scanning proton minibeam production.

In proton minibeam radiation therapy, proton minibeams are typically produced by modulating a uniform field using a multislit collimator. Multislit collimators produce minibeams of fixed length and width, and a new collimator has to be manufactured each time a new minibeam array is required, limiting its flexibility. In this work, we propose a scanning dynamic collimator for the generation of proton minibeams arrays.

Future technological developments in proton therapy - A predicted technological breakthrough.

In the current spectrum of cancer treatments, despite high costs, a lack of robust evidence based on clinical outcomes or technical and radiobiological uncertainties, particle therapy and in particular proton therapy (PT) is rapidly growing. Despite proton therapy being more than fifty years old (first proposed by Wilson in 1946) and more than 220,000 patients having been treated with in 2020, many technological challenges remain and numerous new technical developments that must be integrated into existing systems. This article presents an overview of on-going technical developments and innovations that we felt were most important today, as well as those that have the potential to significantly shape the future of proton therapy.

Relapse recovery in multiple sclerosis: Effect of treatment and contribution to long-term disability.

Background: Although recovery from relapses in MS appears to contribute to disability, it has largely been ignored as a treatment endpoint and disability predictor.

Objective: To identify demographic and clinical predictors of relapse recovery in the first 3 years and examine its contribution to 10-year disability and MRI outcomes.

Methods: Relapse recovery was retrospectively assessed in 360 patients with MS using the return of the Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS), Functional System Scale and neurologic signs to baseline at least 6 months after onset.

X-rays minibeam radiation therapy at a conventional irradiator: Pilot evaluation in F98-glioma bearing rats and dose calculations in a human phantom.

Minibeam radiation therapy (MBRT) is a type of spatial fractionated radiotherapy that uses submillimetric beams. This work reports on a pilot study on normal tissue response and the increase of the lifespan of glioma-bearing rats when irradiated with a tabletop x-ray system. Our results show a significant widening of the therapeutic window for brain tumours treated with MBRT: an important proportion of long-term survivals (60%) coupled with a significant reduction of toxicity when compared with conventional (broad beam) irradiations.

Innovative screening models for the discovery of new schizophrenia drug therapies: an integrated approach.

: Schizophrenia is a severe psychiatric disorder affecting millions worldwide. However, available treatment options do not fully address the disease. Whereas current antipsychotics may control psychotic symptoms, they seem notoriously ineffective in improving negative and cognitive symptoms or in preventing functional decline.

Opposing and potentially antagonistic effects of BMP and TGF-β in multiple sclerosis: The "Yin and Yang" of neuro-immune Signaling.

Bone Morphogenetic Proteins (BMP) and Transforming Growth Factor-beta (TGF-β) are cytokines with similar receptors and messengers. They are important for immune cell function, with BMPs exerting mainly proinflammatory but also anti-inflammatory effects, and TGF-β suppressing inflammation. Patients with Multiple Sclerosis exhibit BMP overactivity and suppressed TGF-β signaling.

Full 3D position reconstruction of a radioactive source based on a novel hyperbolic geometrical algorithm.

A new method to locate, with millimetre uncertainty, in 3D, a -ray source emitting multiple -rays in a cascade, employing conventional LaBr(Ce) scintillation detectors, has been developed. Using 16 detectors in a symmetrical configuration the detector energy and time signals, resulting from the -ray interactions, are fed into a new source position reconstruction algorithm. The Monte-Carlo based Geant4 framework has been used to simulate the detector array and a Co source located at two positions within the spectrometer central volume.

Psychoactive properties of BNN27, a novel neurosteroid derivate, in male and female rats.

Rationale: Νeurosteroids, like dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), play an important role in neurodegeneration and neural protection, but they are metabolized in androgens, estrogens, or other active metabolites. A newly developed synthetic DHEA analog, BNN27 ((20R)-3β,21-dihydroxy-17R,20-epoxy-5-pregnene), exerts neurotrophic and neuroprotective actions without estrogenic or androgenic effects.

Objectives: This study aimed to investigate potential anxiolytic or antidepressant properties of BNN27.

Medical and Surgical Education Challenges and Innovations in the COVID-19 Era: A Systematic Review.

The aim of this systematic review was to identify the challenges imposed on medical and surgical education by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the proposed innovations enabling the continuation of medical student and resident training. A systematic review on the MEDLINE and EMBASE databases was performed on April 18th, 2020, and yielded 1288 articles. Sixty-one of the included manuscripts were synthesized in a qualitative description focused on two major axes, "challenges" and "innovative solutions", and two minor axes, "mental health" and "medical students in the frontlines".

Versatile magnetic microdiscs for the radio enhancement and mechanical disruption of glioblastoma cancer cells.

This study describes the use of highly versatile, lithographically defined magnetic microdiscs. Gold covered magnetic microdiscs are used in both radiosensitizing cancer cells, acting as intracellular emitters of secondary electrons during radiotherapy, and as well as inducing mechanical damage by exerting a mechanical torque when exposed to a rotating magnetic field. This study reveals that lithographically defined microdiscs with a uniform size of 2 microns in diameter highly increase the DNA damage and reduce the glioblastoma colony formation potential compared to conventional radiation therapy.

Implementing Change in Neuroanatomy Education: Organization, Evolution, and Assessment of a Near-Peer Teaching Program in an Undergraduate Medical School in Greece.

In light of the current shifts in medical education from traditional lectures to more active teaching modalities, a peer-teaching program was introduced to a compulsory, second-year neuroanatomy course. A cross-sectional survey of 527 medical students in the six-year medical program of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens was administered. The primary aim of the survey, which was distributed to second- through sixth-year medical students, who had completed the neuroanatomy course, was to assess student perception of peer teachers (PTs).

Insights into the non-homologous end joining pathway and double strand break end mobility provided by mechanistic in silico modelling.

After radiation exposure, one of the critical processes for cellular survival is the repair of DNA double strand breaks. The pathways involved in this response are complex in nature and involve many individual steps that act across different time scales, all of which combine to produce an overall behaviour. It is therefore experimentally challenging to unambiguously determine the mechanisms involved and how they interact whilst maintaining strict control of all confounding variables.

Clinically relevant nanodosimetric simulation of DNA damage complexity from photons and protons.

Relative Biological Effectiveness (RBE), the ratio of doses between radiation modalities to produce the same biological endpoint, is a controversial and important topic in proton therapy. A number of phenomenological models incorporate variable RBE as a function of Linear Energy Transfer (LET), though a lack of mechanistic description limits their applicability. In this work we take a different approach, using a track structure model employing fundamental physics and chemistry to make predictions of proton and photon induced DNA damage, the first step in the mechanism of radiation-induced cell death.