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The rapid integration of large language models into higher education creates opportunities for mathematics instruction, but also raises the need for structured interaction strategies that support reflective learning rather than passive answer consumption. This study, conducted within the Erasmus+ MAESTRO-AI project, examines how selected AI prompt patterns can be implemented in concrete university mathematics activities and how students evaluate these AI-supported experiences. Two experimental modules were compared: complex numbers for first-semester Applied Mathematics students in Poland (n=100) and conditional probability for second-year Computer Science students in Romania (n=213). After completing AI-assisted learning activities with ChatGPT and/or Gemini, students completed a common evaluation questionnaire assessing engagement, perceived usefulness, and reflections on AI as a tutor. Group comparisons and experience-based analyses were performed using the Mann–Whitney test. Results indicate that students who reported regular prior use of AI tools evaluated AI-supported learning significantly more positively than those with occasional or no prior experience. They gave higher ratings across most questionnaire items as well as for the overall score. The findings suggest that prompt-pattern-based designs can support engaging AI-assisted mathematics activities. They also indicate that such designs can provide a structured learning experience, while introductory guidance may be important to ensure comparable benefits for less experienced students.

Exacerbations are major contributors to morbidity and mortality in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and respiratory bacterial and viral infections are an important trigger. However, using conventional diagnostic techniques, a causative agent is not always found. Metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) allows analysis of the complete virome, but has not yet been applied in COPD exacerbations. To study the respiratory virome in nasopharyngeal samples during COPD exacerbations using mNGS. 88 nasopharyngeal swabs from 63 patients from the Bergen COPD Exacerbation Study (2006-2010) were analysed by mNGS and in-house qPCR for respiratory viruses. Both DNA and RNA were sequenced simultaneously using an Illumina library preparation protocol with in-house adaptations. By mNGS, 24/88 samples tested positive. Sensitivity and specificity, as compared with PCR, were 96% and 98% for diagnostic targets (23/24 and 1093/1120, respectively). Additional viral pathogens detected by mNGS were herpes simplex virus type 1 and coronavirus OC43. A positive correlation was found between Cq value and mNGS viral normalized species reads (log value) (p = 0.002). Patients with viral pathogens had lower percentages of bacteriophages (p<0.001). No correlation was found between viral reads and clinical markers. The mNGS protocol used was highly sensitive and specific for semi-quantitative detection of respiratory viruses. Excellent negative predictive value implicates the power of mNGS to exclude any pathogenic respiratory viral infectious cause in one test, with consequences for clinical decision making. Reduced abundance of bacteriophages in COPD patients with viral pathogens implicates skewing of the virome during infection, with potential consequences for the bacterial populations, during infection.

The checklist of Greek Cyanobacteria was created in the framework of the Greek Taxon Information System (GTIS), an initiative of the LifeWatchGreece Research Infrastructure (ESFRI) that has resumed efforts to compile a complete checklist of species reported from Greece. This list was created from exhaustive search of the scientific literature of the last 60 years. All records of taxa known to occur in Greece were taxonomically updated. The checklist of Greek Cyanobacteria comprises 543 species, classified in 130 genera, 41 families, and 8 orders. The orders Synechococcales and Oscillatoriales have the highest number of species (158 and 153 species, respectively), whereas these two orders along with Nostocales and Chroococcales cover 93% of the known Greek cyanobacteria species. It is worth mentioning that 18 species have been initially described from Greek habitats. The marine epilithic Ammatoidea aegea described from Saronikos Gulf is considered endemic to this area. Our bibliographic review shows that Greece hosts a high diversity of cyanobacteria, suggesting that the Mediterranean area is also a hot spot for microbes.

Viral metagenomics is increasingly applied in clinical diagnostic settings for detection of pathogenic viruses. While several benchmarking studies have been published on the use of metagenomic classifiers for abundance and diversity profiling of bacterial populations, studies on the comparative performance of the classifiers for virus pathogen detection are scarce. In this study, metagenomic data sets (n = 88) from a clinical cohort of patients with respiratory complaints were used for comparison of the performance of five taxonomic classifiers: Centrifuge, Clark, Kaiju, Kraken2, and Genome Detective. A total of 1144 positive and negative PCR results for a total of 13 respiratory viruses were used as gold standard. Sensitivity and specificity of these classifiers ranged from 83 to 100% and 90 to 99%, respectively, and was dependent on the classification level and data pre-processing. Exclusion of human reads generally resulted in increased specificity. Normalization of read counts for genome length resulted in a minor effect on overall performance, however it negatively affected the detection of targets with read counts around detection level. Correlation of sequence read counts with PCR Ct-values varied per classifier, data pre-processing (R2 range 15.1–63.4%), and per virus, with outliers up to 3 log10 reads magnitude beyond the predicted read count for viruses with high sequence diversity. In this benchmarking study, sensitivity and specificity were within the ranges of use for diagnostic practice when the cut-off for defining a positive result was considered per classifier.

Automation and robotization (A&R) is often the main driving force behind the development of advanced manufacturing, including the transformation of the company towards the Industry 4.0 model. Effective implementation and effective use of A&R solutions is possible only if the company has good prepared and educated employees. It applies to all levels, from the direct operation of machines and processes, through mid-level technical staff, to the management level. Nowadays, education of young staff, as well as training of those currently employed, requires the implementation of new solutions and methods of Vocational Education and Training (VET). They should ensure not only a high professional level, but also meet the challenges facing VET today: attractiveness of education for students, especially young ones, universal accessibility regardless of the place of residence, internationalization. The paper, presenting results of the MILAN project, shows that addressing those problems can largely be facilitated by the use of modern, advanced ICT solutions.

First and foremost, Music states that \"a 'southern' tune book is considered to be one compiled by a resident of one of the states that later formed the Confederate States of America, plus the border states of Kentucky and Missouri\" (xiii). [...]Music does not appear to differentiate between music composed in the South and music that is identified as \"Southern.\" Later scholars perpetuated this ideology largely because of the unbroken tradition of performance of this music from tunebooks such as The Sacred Harp by B. F. White and E. J. King (1844) and The Southern Harmony, despite the fact that books employing the seven-shape system using the Italian solfège (i.e., do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti) also appear in unbroken tradition.

The aim of my thesis is to explore the macroeconomic impacts of the projected demographic changes in Greece. Population of Greece is projected to age in the course of the next three decades. The thesis combines demographic projections with a multi-period economic Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) modelling framework to assess the macroeconomic impact of these future demographic trends. The size and age composition of the population in the future depends on current and future values of demographic parameters such as the fertility, mortality rates and the level of annual net migration. I use FIV-FIV demographic software in order to project population changes for 30 years. Total population and working age population changes are introduced as exogenous disturbances to the G-AMOS CGE modelling framework calibrated for the Greek economy for the year 2004. The economic impacts of a very wide range of demographic scenarios are examined. The main finding is that positive net migration is able to cancel the negative impacts of an ageing population that would otherwise occur as a result of the shrinking of the labour force. The very serious policy implication is that a viable, long-lasting migration policy should be implemented, while the importance of policies that could increase fertility should also be considered.

This narrative chronicles the dissemination of sacred music from the eastern seaboard to the West and South spanning a time frame from the colonial era to the latter part of the Early Nationalist Period (1700-1820). Musical culture in its migration away from the eastern seaboard also parallels the greater western and southern expansion of the United States from its initial configuration of localized regional subgroups to the beginnings of a larger national identity. From this conceptual base, sacred music becomes a vehicle for understanding not only religious and musical changes over time, but also the broader maturity of a nation. Focusing on this period allows for inquiries both into the development of hymnody in the Middle Atlantic, and the subsequent developments of the West and South. These chronological delimitations allow for a discussion of musical practice beginning with formative sacred music developments and continuing to the incorporation of techniques shaped by reform-minded musicians from the eastern seaboard. The following topics guided the construction of this thesis: explicating how the Middle Atlantic region shaped compositional trends, aesthetic, and performance practice of the American West and South; identifying the various southern cultures as understood by eighteenth and nineteenth-century southerners and their application to sacred music practice; understanding how nineteenth-century Americans distinguished between the West and the South; understanding how southern and western music relates to individual denominations and cultures within these areas; and understanding performance practice common to the evangelical and non-evangelical branches of individual sects. Identifying patterns of development in American sacred music of the South and West involves documentation of performance practice, denominational aesthetics, and tunebook bibliography. The study of eighteenth-and-nineteenth-century material by twentieth-and-twenty-first-century writers has falsely defined cultural borders of this region according to a post-bellum conceptualization of the boundaries of the North and South. Prior to 1850, writers defined their borders according to a different set of geographic boundaries than today. Consequently, this thesis differs in terms of geographic and cultural definitions of the North and South from current scholarship because of this writer’s application of colonial and Early Nationalist understandings of American culture. KEYWORDS: Sacred Music, Trans-Atlantic Cultural Geography, Music Bibliography, American South and West, Performance Practice.

Pappas reviews Hymnology in the Service of the Church: Essays in Honor of Harry Eskew edited by Paul R. Powell.