Carob Syrup: Prebiotic Potential of a Neglected Functional Beverage of Mediterranean Countries.

Carob syrup, a traditional Mediterranean functional beverage obtained from (L.) pods, has been historically valued for its nutritional properties but is currently underutilized. This study compared the prebiotic potential of three handmade carob syrups produced by Tunisian women with commercial benchmarks from Italy, Greece and Cyprus.

Water-Gas Shift over Pt Nanoparticles Dispersed on CeO and Gadolinium-Doped Ceria (GDC) Supports with Specific Nano-Configurations.

The water-gas shift (WGS) reaction is one of the most significant reactions in hydrogen technology since it can be used directly to produce hydrogen from the reaction of CO and water; it is also a side reaction taking place in the hydrocarbon reforming processes, determining their selectivity towards H production. The development of highly active WGS catalysts, especially at temperatures below ~450 °C, where the reaction is thermodynamically favored but kinetically limited, remains a challenge. From a fundamental point of view, the reaction mechanism is still unclear.

Fairness and Contractual Performance in Vertical Linkages Within an Uncertain Environment: A Case of a Tomato Value Chain.

In developing countries with uncertain institutional environments, ensuring fairness in contractual arrangements within food value chains is crucial to overcome modern challenges. This paper empirically investigates the vertical relationship between tomato growers and canneries in Algerian agriculture to assess the determinants of contractual performances and price fairness implications. The study is based on an analysis of a comprehensive dataset of 9127 tomato growers engaged in contract farming over four years (2018-2021).

The smartHEALTH European Digital Innovation Hub experiences and challenges for accelerating the transformation of public and private organizations within the innovation ecosystem.

Digital innovation can significantly enhance public health services, environmental sustainability, and social welfare. To this end, the European Digital Innovation Hub (EDIH) initiative was funded by the European Commission and national governments aiming to facilitate the digital transformation on various domains (including health) via the setup of relevant ecosystems consisting of academic institutions, research centres, start-ups, small and medium-sized enterprises, larger companies, public organizations, technology transfer offices, innovation clusters, and financial institutions. The ongoing goal of the EDIHs initiative is to bridge the gap between high-tech research taking place in universities and research centres and its deployment in real-world conditions by fostering innovation ecosystems.

DOME Registry: implementing community-wide recommendations for reporting supervised machine learning in biology.

Supervised machine learning (ML) is used extensively in biology and deserves closer scrutiny. The Data Optimization Model Evaluation (DOME) recommendations aim to enhance the validation and reproducibility of ML research by establishing standards for key aspects such as data handling and processing, optimization, evaluation, and model interpretability. The recommendations help to ensure that key details are reported transparently by providing a structured set of questions.

Motives and constraints to bike tourism in Greece: "the Go-bike" project.

Introduction: Bike tourism is one of the fast-developing alternative forms of tourism since it can satisfy the main pillars of sustainability (economic, social, and environmental). The current study is part of a larger funded project (GoBike) and aims to profile bike tourists in Greece, examine the motives and constraints to tourism participation, and show the value of using technology as a means of promoting bike tourism.

Methods: The data was collected through a quantitative study, with one hundred and five individuals who had experience with bike tourism activities, with the use of an online questionnaire.

Switching Mediterranean Consumers to Mediterranean Sustainable Healthy Dietary Patterns (SWITCHtoHEALTHY): Study Protocol of a Multicentric and Multi-Cultural Family-Based Nutritional Intervention Study.

Background/objectives: Populations in Mediterranean countries are abandoning the traditional Mediterranean diet (MD) and lifestyle, shifting towards unhealthier habits due to profound cultural and socioeconomic changes. The SWITCHtoHEALTHY project aims to demonstrate the effectiveness of a multi-component nutritional intervention to improve the adherence of families to the MD in three Mediterranean countries, thus prompting a dietary behavior change.

Methods: A parallel, randomized, single-blinded, and controlled multicentric nutritional intervention study will be conducted over 3 months in 480 families with children and adolescents aged 3-17 years from Spain, Morocco, and Turkey.

Model-based study of Yarrowia lipolytica cultivation on crude glycerol under different fermentation modes: Development of a membrane bioreactor process.

Batch fermentations of the wild type Yarrowia lipolytica MUCL 28849 were performed in a bench-top bioreactor to assess crucial operating conditions. A setup of carbon to nitrogen (mol/mol) ratio equal to 34, pH = 6.0 and 52 g/L of crude glycerol showed increased lipid production and complete glycerol consumption at t = 24 h, thus, selected for further process improvement.

AI Promoted Virtual Screening, Structure-Based Hit Optimization, and Synthesis of Novel COVID-19 S-RBD Domain Inhibitors.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is caused by a new, highly pathogenic severe-acute-respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) that infects human cells through its transmembrane spike (S) glycoprotein. The receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the S protein interacts with the angiotensin-converting enzyme II (ACE2) receptor of the host cells. Therefore, pharmacological targeting of this interaction might prevent infection or spread of the virus.

High-resolution gene expression atlases of two contrasting major Greek olive (Olea europaea L.) tree cultivars for oil and table olive production.

Description Of Aims And Systems Used: Olive (Olea europea L.) is one of the most economically important tree crops worldwide, especially for the countries in the Mediterranean basin. Given the economic and nutritional importance of the crop for olive oil and drupe production, we generated transcriptional atlases for the Greek olive cultivars "Chondrolia Chalkidikis" and "Koroneiki" which have contrasting characteristics in terms of fruit development, oil production properties, and use.

Assessment of Phosphine Resistance in Major Stored-Product Insects in Greece Using Two Diagnostic Protocols.

Post-harvest losses due to insect infestation and spoilage by bacteria and molds pose significant challenges to global cereal production. This study investigates the prevalence of resistance to phosphine, a commonly used grain protection agent, in stored-grain insects. The research, conducted in various storage facilities across Greece, examined 53 populations of key stored-product insect species.

Stereotyped B-Cell Receptor Immunoglobulins in B-Cell Lymphomas.

Thorough examination of clonotypic B-cell receptor immunoglobulin (BcR IG) gene rearrangement sequences in patients with mature B-cell malignancies has revealed significant repertoire restrictions, leading to the identification of subsets of patients expressing highly similar, stereotyped BcR IG. This discovery strongly suggests selection by common epitopes or classes of structurally similar epitopes in the development of these tumors. Initially observed in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), where the stereotyped fraction accounts for a substantial fraction of patients, stereotyped BcR IGs have also been identified in other mature B-cell malignancies, including mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) and splenic marginal zone lymphoma (SMZL).

An Experimental Assessment Using Acoustic Emission Sensors to Effectively Detect Surface Deterioration on Steel Plates.

Acoustic emission (AE) testing is used for the continuous evaluation of structural integrity and the monitoring of damage evolution in structural components and materials. During operation, the environmental and loading conditions of metal structures can result in corrosion and surface wear damage. The early detection of surface degradation flaws is crucial, as they can serve as local stress concentration points, leading to crack initiation and failure.

Development of a CFD-DEM Model for a 1 MW Chemical Looping Gasification Pilot Plant Using Biogenic Residues as Feedstock.

Chemical looping gasification (CLG) is a novel dual fluidized bed gasification process that enables the conversion of solid feedstocks to a nitrogen-free syngas through in situ air separation, avoiding a costly air separation unit. While there have been recent advances in experimental studies, modeling of CLG is almost exclusively restricted to lab-scale units or 1D models. In this study, a 3D CFD-DEM model of a 1 MW fuel reactor for the conversion of solid biomass was developed.

On the Temporal Evolution of Key Hemofilter Parameters-In Vitro Study under Co-Current Flow.

Effective permeability K, the ultrafiltration coefficient (K), the sieving coefficient (SC), and the loss/permeation of proteins (primarily albumin) are key parameters/specifications characterizing hemofilter (HF) performance. However, there are uncertainties regarding their determination. This work aims (a) to demonstrate that the co-current flow (of blood and dialysate) can lead to beneficial unidirectional filtration (from blood/plasma to dialysate) under a fairly uniform local trans-membrane pressure (TMP), unlike the presently employed counter-current flow; (b) to study the temporal evolution of key HF performance parameters under co-current flow, particularly during the important early stage of hemocatharsis (HC).

PolyMeme: Fine-Grained Internet Meme Sensing.

Internet memes are a special type of digital content that is shared through social media. They have recently emerged as a popular new format of media communication. They are often multimodal, combining text with images and aim to express humor, irony, sarcasm, or sometimes convey hatred and misinformation.

In Situ Investigation of Tensile Response for Inconel 718 Micro-Architected Materials Fabricated by Selective Laser Melting.

Topology optimization enables the design of advanced architected materials with tailored mechanical properties and optimal material distribution. This method can result in the production of parts with uniform mechanical properties, reducing anisotropy effects and addressing a critical challenge in metal additive manufacturing (AM). The current study aims to examine the micro-tensile response of Inconel 718 architected materials utilizing the Selective Laser Melting Technique.

The non-canonical BAF chromatin remodeling complex is a novel target of spliceosome dysregulation in SF3B1-mutated chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

SF3B1 mutations are recurrent in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), particularly enriched in clinically aggressive stereotyped subset #2. To investigate their impact, we conducted RNA-sequencing of 18 SF3B1 and 17 SF3B1 subset #2 cases and identified 80 significant alternative splicing events (ASEs). Notable ASEs concerned exon inclusion in the non-canonical BAF (ncBAF) chromatin remodeling complex subunit, BRD9, and splice variants in eight additional ncBAF complex interactors.

Economical hybrid novelty detection leveraging global aleatoric semantic uncertainty for enhanced MRI-based ACL tear diagnosis.

This study presents an innovative hybrid deep learning (DL) framework that reformulates the sagittal MRI-based anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tear classification task as a novelty detection problem to tackle class imbalance. We introduce a highly discriminative novelty score, which leverages the aleatoric semantic uncertainty as this is modeled in the class scores outputted by the YOLOv5-nano object detection (OD) model. To account for tissue continuity, we propose using the global scores (probability vector) when the model is applied to the entire sagittal sequence.

Selective electrodialysis for nutrient recovery and pharmaceutical removal from liquid digestate: Pilot-scale investigation and potential fertilizer production.

The present research employs a pilot-scale selective electrodialysis system to treat liquid digestate, fractionating nutrient ions and exploring fertilizer creation via ammonia stripping and phosphorus precipitation, while studying pharmaceutical transport behavior and examining membrane fouling. The influence of diverse potentials was studied in simulated and real digestate, with 30 V application proven more efficient overall. Applying consecutive runs resulted in products that were 7.

Pre-Pilot Usability Study of the Take-A-Breath Project: A Personalized Platform for Respiratory Disease Management.

This study aims to evaluate the patient's platform of the Take-A-Breath project-a Greek project for personalized respiratory disease support. The pre-pilot usability study, involving 11 participants, employed a mixed-methods approach. While calculated scores indicate overall acceptance, concerns are identified, particularly regarding the learning curve needed for the guided inhalation feature, the application's core functionality.