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Internet of Things (IoT) appliances, especially those realized through wireless sensor networks (WSNs), have been a dominant subject for heavy research in the environmental and agricultural sectors. To address the ever-increasing demands for real-time monitoring and sufficiently handle the growing volumes of raw data, the cloud/fog computing paradigm is deemed a highly promising solution. This paper presents a WSN-based IoT system that seamlessly integrates all aforementioned technologies, having at its core the cloud/fog hybrid network architecture. The system was intensively validated using a demo prototype in the Ionian University facilities, focusing on response time, an important metric of future smart applications. Further, the developed prototype is able to autonomously adjust its sensing behavior based on the criticality of the prevailing environmental conditions, regarding one of the most notable climate hazards, wildfires. Extensive experimentation verified its efficiency and reported on its alertness and highly conforming characteristics considering the use-case scenario of Corfu Island’s 2019 fire risk severity. In all presented cases, it is shown that through fog leveraging it is feasible to contrive significant delay reduction, with high precision and throughput, whilst controlling the energy consumption levels. Finally, a user-driven web interface is highlighted to accompany the system; it is capable of augmenting the data curation and visualization, and offering real-time wildfire risk forecasting based on Chandler’s burning index scoring.

The main source of systematic uncertainty on neutrino cross section measurements at the GeV scale is represented by the poor knowledge of the initial flux. The goal of cutting down this uncertainty to 1% can be achieved through the monitoring of charged leptons produced in association with neutrinos, by properly instrumenting the decay region of a conventional narrow-band neutrino beam. Large angle muons and positrons from kaons are measured by a sampling calorimeter on the decay tunnel walls (tagger), while muon stations after the hadron dump can be used to monitor the neutrino component from pion decays. This instrumentation can provide a full control on both the muon and electron neutrino fluxes at all energies. Furthermore, the narrow momentum width (<10%) of the beam provides a O(10%) measurement of the neutrino energy on an event by event basis, thanks to its correlation with the radial position of the interaction at the neutrino detector. The ENUBET project has been funded by the ERC in 2016 to prove the feasibility of such a monitored neutrino beam and is cast in the framework of the CERN neutrino platform (NP06) and the Physics Beyond Colliders initiative. In our contribution, we summarize the ENUBET design, physics performance and opportunities for its implementation in a timescale comparable with next long baseline neutrino experiments.

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the impact of the market orientation and market based resources of actively involved exporters and their distributors on export venture performance. Previous literature in marketing channels has examined the effect of the market orientation of suppliers and their distributors on supplier-distributor relationships, mainly in a domestic context, as well as the impact of the quality of their relationship on business performance in domestic and international contexts. Little or no research focuses on the interplay between the relevant marketing resources, such as market orientation, proactive market orientation, selling, pricing reputation, and market innovation, of an export venture and their distributor, and consequently on export venture performance. This dissertation is mainly a quantitative study using a mail survey among Greek exporting firms in various industries. The final sample comprised 190 exporting ventures. The survey was enhanced through open interviews with export venture managers and their respective distributors and was pre-tested with a small-scale dyadic survey. Survey data were analysed using structural equation modelling. The main research objective was to assess the impact of marketing support resources, namely market orientation and proactive market orientation, and market-based resources of an export venture and its distributor on export performance. In addition, the relationship of marketing support resources of the export venture and those of the distributor was examined. Some of the relationships examined are a migration of traditional domestic theory (Hooley et al. 2005), to an exporting context, testing whether there are differences in the relationships in a different context. This study contributes to the resource-based view, marketing, and export business literature, as findings indicate that high levels of export venture proactive market orientation lead to distributors with high levels of market orientation. In line with findings of domestic context research, the proactive market orientation of the venture renders its market orientation statistically not significant.

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the impact of the market orientation and market based resources of actively involved exporters and their distributors on export venture performance. Previous literature in marketing channels has examined the effect of the market orientation of suppliers and their distributors on supplier-distributor relationships, mainly in a domestic context, as well as the impact of the quality of their relationship on business performance in domestic and international contexts. Little or no research focuses on the interplay between the relevant marketing resources, such as market orientation, proactive market orientation, selling, pricing reputation, and market innovation, of an export venture and their distributor, and consequently on export venture performance. This dissertation is mainly a quantitative study using a mail survey among Greek exporting firms in various industries. The final sample comprised 190 exporting ventures. The survey was enhanced through open interviews with export venture managers and their respective distributors and was pre-tested with a small-scale dyadic survey. Survey data were analysed using structural equation modelling. The main research objective was to assess the impact of marketing support resources, namely market orientation and proactive market orientation, and market-based resources of an export venture and its distributor on export performance. In addition, the relationship of marketing support resources of the export venture and those of the distributor was examined. Some of the relationships examined are a migration of traditional domestic theory (Hooley et al. 2005), to an exporting context, testing whether there are differences in the relationships in a different context. This study contributes to the resource-based view, marketing, and export business literature, as findings indicate that high levels of export venture proactive market orientation lead to distributors with high levels of market orientation. In line with findings of domestic context research, the proactive market orientation of the venture renders its market orientation statistically not significant.

High-dose chemotherapy with autologous stem cell support (ASCT) is the standard of care for eligible newly diagnosed Multiple Myeloma (MM) patients. Stem cell graft contamination by aberrant plasma cells (APCs) has been considered a possible predictive marker of subsequent clinical outcome, but the limited reports to date present unclear conclusions. We prospectively estimated the frequency of graft contamination using highly sensitive next-generation flow cytometry and evaluated its clinical impact in 199 myeloma patients who underwent an ASCT. Contamination (con+) was detected in 79/199 patients at a median level 2 × 10−5. Its presence and levels were correlated with response to induction treatment, with 94%, 71% and 43% achieving CR, VGPR and PR, respectively. Importantly, con+ grafts conferred 2-fold and 2.8-fold higher patient-risk of not achieving or delaying reaching CR (4 vs. 11 months) and MRD negativity (5 vs. 18 months) post ASCT, respectively. Our data also provide evidence of a potentially skewed bone marrow (BM) reconstitution due to unpurged grafts, since con+ derived BM had significantly higher prevalence of memory B cells. These data, together with the absence of significant associations with baseline clinical features, highlight graft contamination as a potential biomarker with independent prognostic value for deeper responses, including MRD negativity. Longer follow-up will reveal if this corresponds to PFS or OS advantage.

About the Authors: Anastasia Chasapi Affiliation: Biological Computation & Process Lab, Chemical Process & Energy Resources Institute, Centre for Research & Technology Hellas, Thessalonica, Greece ORCID logo http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1986-5007 Michalis Aivaliotis Affiliations School of Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessalonica, Greece, Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas, Heraklion, Greece Lefteris Angelis Affiliation: School of Informatics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessalonica, Greece Anastasios Chanalaris Affiliation: Botnar Research Centre, NDORMS, Medical Sciences Division, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom ORCID logo http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8884-6750 Ioannis Iliopoulos Affiliation: Division of Basic Sciences, School of Medicine, University of Crete, Heraklion, Greece ORCID logo http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9079-0565 Ilias Kappas Affiliation: School of Biology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessalonica, Greece ORCID logo http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8564-7035 Christos Karapiperis Affiliation: School of Informatics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessalonica, Greece Nikos C. Kyrpides Affiliation: Department of Energy, Joint Genome Institute, Walnut Creek, California, United States of America ORCID logo http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6131-0462 Evangelos Pafilis Affiliation: Institute of Marine Biology Biotechnology and Aquaculture, Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, Heraklion, Greece ORCID logo http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5079-0125 Eleftherios Panteris Affiliation: First Psychiatric Clinic, Papageorgiou General Hospital, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessalonica, Greece Pantelis Topalis Affiliation: Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas, Heraklion, Greece George Tsiamis Affiliation: Department of Environmental Engineering, School of Engineering, University of Patras, Patras, Greece ORCID logo http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5616-8505 Ioannis S. Vizirianakis Affiliation: Department of Pharmacology, School of Pharmacy, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessalonica, Greece Metaxia Vlassi Affiliation: Institute of Biosciences & Applications, National Centre for Scientific Research Demokritos, Athens, Greece Vasilis J. Promponas * E-mail: vprobon@ucy.ac.cy (VJP); ouzounis@certh.gr (CAO) Affiliation: Bioinformatics Research Laboratory, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus ORCID logo http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3352-4831 Christos A. Ouzounis * E-mail: vprobon@ucy.ac.cy (VJP); ouzounis@certh.gr (CAO) Affiliation: Biological Computation & Process Lab, Chemical Process & Energy Resources Institute, Centre for Research & Technology Hellas, Thessalonica, Greece ORCID logo http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0086-8657 Introduction In the mid-1980s, a generation of prominent biologists inspired some of their students to follow an interdisciplinary career in the life sciences. [...]we issue a number of recommendations relevant for the 2 countries, taking into account the rich biodiversity and their particular geographical and geopolitical context, with the hope that policies can be formulated with more precision and insight for future development of bioinformatics in this southeastern, strategically located corner of Europe. [...]it is not feasible and certainly beyond the scope of this article to provide a detailed record of the activities that have contributed to a successful computational biology community in Greece and Cyprus; for this, we apologize and hope that additional efforts might be reported in the pertinent literature in the future. [...]the few graduate programs in biological computing of that era were oriented towards theoretical ecology or plant genetics and—less so—to molecular biology.

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection constitutes a global public health problem. In order to establish how HBV was disseminated across different geographic regions, we estimated the levels of regional clustering for genotypes D and A. We used 916 HBV-D and 493 HBV-A full-length sequences to reconstruct their global phylogeny. Phylogeographic analysis was conducted by the reconstruction of ancestral states using the criterion of parsimony. The putative origin of genotype D was in North Africa/Middle East. HBV-D sequences form low levels of regional clustering for the Middle East and Southern Europe. In contrast, HBV-A sequences form two major clusters, the first including sequences mostly from sub-Saharan Africa, and the second including sequences mostly from Western and Central Europe. Conclusion: We observed considerable differences in the global dissemination patterns of HBV-D and HBV-A and different levels of monophyletic clustering in relation to the regions of prevalence of each genotype. The Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a major cause of liver disease, and according to the World Health Organization, around 257 million people live with Hepatitis B infection. The virus is a relatively ancient one in human history and has been infecting humans for at least 28,000 years. Previous studies have isolated HBV DNA from human skeletons dating from 800 to 7,000 years ago in Europe and Central Asia. Multiple types of this virus exist. Two types called HBV-A and HBV-D are present worldwide, with HBV-A being prevalent in Africa and in Europe, and HBV-D being very common in the Middle East and also in Europe. Even though HBV has been infecting humans for millennia, there is little detailed knowledge of the how the disease spread among populations and geographical areas in the past. Due to few studies in this discipline, understanding of how the different types of HBV were dispersed and disseminated over time has remained patchy. Now, Kostaki et al. analysed HBV-A and HBV-D DNA sequence data from present-day Hepatitis B patients to piece together a global map of historic spread of the virus. The results showed that HBV-D originated in North Africa and the Middle East, while HBV-A originated close to Africa and Europe and probably in the Middle East and Central Asia. HBV-A initially spread in Central Africa, after which it split into two separate pathways. The first spread to Sub-Saharan/eastern and southern Africa, with the other stretching to Sub-Saharan/eastern Africa. Much later, major regional transmissions happened from Africa to Brazil, Haiti and the Indian subcontinent, which are thought to be most likely due to the slave trade. Uncovering the history of the spread of HBV and the human activities associated with it can help to inform public health strategies for avoiding similar situations happening again. These findings could be specifically useful in prevention of HBV in geographical areas where transmission is a high risk, ultimately helping to take steps toward eliminating HBV.

Questionnaires on health-related quality of life (HRQoL) play a crucial role in managing patients by revealing insights into physical, psychological, lifestyle, and social factors affecting well-being. A methodological aspect that has not been adequately explored yet, and is of considerable potential, is causal discovery. This study explored causal discovery techniques within HRQoL, assessed various considerations for reliable estimation, and proposed means for interpreting outcomes. Five causal structure learning algorithms were employed to examine different aspects in structure estimation based on simulated data derived from HRQoL-related directed acyclic graphs. The performance of the algorithms was assessed based on various measures related to the differences between the true and estimated structures. Moreover, the Resource Description Framework was adopted to represent the responses to the HRQoL questionnaires and the detected cause–effect relationships among the questions, resulting in semantic knowledge graphs which are structured representations of interconnected information. It was found that the structure estimation was impacted negatively by the structure’s complexity and favorably by increasing the sample size. The performance of the algorithms over increasing sample size exhibited a similar pattern, with distinct differences being observed for small samples. This study illustrates the dynamics of causal discovery in HRQoL-related research, highlights aspects that should be addressed in estimation, and fosters the shareability and interoperability of the output based on globally established standards. Thus, it provides critical insights in this context, further promoting the critical role of HRQoL questionnaires in advancing patient-centered care and management.

Background: Patients undergoing coronary angiography very frequently exhibit coronary chronic total occlusions (CTOs). Over the last decade, there has been an increasing acceptance of the percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI) in CTOs due to, among else, rising operator experience and advances in technology. This study is an effort to address the problem of identifying important factors related to the success or failure of the PCI. Methods: The analysis is based on the EuroCTO Registry, which is the largest database available worldwide, consisting of 164 variables and 29,995 cases for the period 2008–2018. The aim is to assess the dynamics of causal models and causal discovery, using observational data, in predicting the result of the PCI. Causal models use graph structure to assess the cause–effect relationships between variables. In this study, the constrained-based algorithm PC was employed. The focus was to find the local causal structure around the PCI result and use it as a feature selection tool for building a predictive model. Results: The model developed was compared with other modeling approaches from the literature, and it was found to perform equally well or better. Conclusions: The analysis showcased the potential of employing local causal structure in predictive model development.