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Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a systemic and chronic autoimmune disease affecting about 1% of the global population, with a higher prevalence in women. Its treatment has been improved greatly over the past 30 years but there is no definitive cure available, and another unmet need exists for transitional hormonal stages such as pregnancy or menopause, which spurs the need to research new therapy options. In recent years, dietary interventions, particularly fasting and plant-based nutrition, have gained attention for their potential to alleviate RA symptoms. Fasting has been shown to reduce systemic inflammation, promote autophagy, and modulate immune cell activity, possibly leading to decreased joint pain and swelling. Nutritional strategies, such as anti-inflammatory and plant-based diets, have been shown to impact the gut microbiome and potentially support weight management, improve metabolic health, and reduce oxidative stress, all of which might contribute to better RA disease outcomes. Although the precise mechanisms remain under investigation, these approaches offer promising complementary strategies for enhancing RA management and improving patients’ quality of life. This review explores the preventive and therapeutic potential of fasting and nutrition in RA, and their possible application in the context of hormonal fluctuations and transitional stages during a women’s life.

Protein cancer biomarkers serve multiple clinical purposes, both early and late, during disease progression. The search for new and better biomarkers has become an integral component of contemporary cancer research. However, the number of new biomarkers cleared by the US Food and Drug Administration has declined substantially over the last 10 years, raising concerns regarding the efficiency of the biomarker-development pipeline. We describe different clinical uses of cancer biomarkers and their performance requirements. We also present examples of protein cancer biomarkers currently in clinical use and their limitations. The major barriers that candidate biomarkers need to overcome to reach the clinic are addressed. Finally, the long and arduous journey of a protein cancer biomarker from the bench to the clinic is outlined with an example. The journey of a protein biomarker from the bench to the clinic is long and challenging. Every step needs to be meticulously planned and executed to succeed. The history of clinically useful biomarkers suggests that at least a decade is required for the transition of a marker from the bench to the bedside. Therefore, it may be too early to expect that the new technological advances will catalyze the anticipated biomarker revolution any time soon.

The educational value of play has long been acknowledged. During recent decades, much attention has been paid to video games and the multifarious ways in which they can promote and enhance learning. Μy main objective in this study is to weave game principles, learning and the notion of playfulness into assessment principles, in an attempt to investigate how what I call ‘Game-Informed Playful Assessment’ (GIPA) can affect student learning and particularly students’ experience of learning. The GIPA was designed with a view to promoting students’ agency, autonomy, collaboration and playfulness, and was introduced in an undergraduate course on Archaic Greek Lyric poetry at a Greek-speaking university. My data was generated through in-depth interviews with ten of the students that attended the course. While the GIPA was favourably and even enthusiastically received by students, the research also brought to the fore several other issues that call for attention, such as the stress that innovative assessment may provoke in students, and the readiness of students to be playful within an academic framework that typically contrasts serious work with playfulness and play in general.

The educational value of play has long been acknowledged. During recent decades, much attention has been paid to video games and the multifarious ways in which they can promote and enhance learning. My main objective in this study is to weave game principles, learning and the notion of playfulness into assessment principles, in an attempt to investigate how what I call ‘Game-Informed Playful Assessment’ (GIPA) can affect student learning and particularly students’ experience of learning. The GIPA was designed with a view to promoting students’ agency, autonomy, collaboration and playfulness, and was introduced in an undergraduate course on archaic Greek lyric poetry at a Greek-speaking university. My data was generated through in-depth interviews with ten of the students that attended the course. While the GIPA was favourably and even enthusiastically received by students, the research also brought to the fore several other issues that call for attention, such as the stress that innovative assessment may provoke in students and the readiness of students to be playful within an academic framework that typically contrasts serious work with playfulness and play in general.

Despite widespread interest, few serum biomarkers have been introduced to the clinic over the past 20 years. Will a global biomarker discovery platform that mines all possible sources for biomarkers be more useful in the search for promising ovarian cancer biomarkers? Despite widespread interest, few serum biomarkers have been introduced to the clinic over the past 20 years. Each approach to ovarian cancer biomarker discovery has its own advantages and disadvantages and it seems likely that a global biomarker discovery platform that mines all possible sources for biomarkers might be more useful. Such data could be combined with information from relevant microarray data, bioinformatic analyses and literature searches. This proposed integrated systems biology approach has the potential to yield promising ovarian cancer markers for diagnosis, prognosis and monitoring of patients during therapy.

MassIVE.quant is a repository infrastructure and data resource for reproducible quantitative mass spectrometry–based proteomics, which is compatible with all mass spectrometry data acquisition types and computational analysis tools. A branch structure enables MassIVE.quant to systematically store raw experimental data, metadata of the experimental design, scripts of the quantitative analysis workflow, intermediate input and output files, as well as alternative reanalyses of the same dataset. MassIVE.quant is a data repository and data resource for reproducible quantitative mass spectrometry–based proteomics.

Platonic dialogues are full of poetic references. As well as revealing a vivid interest in, and acquaintance with, previous poetic works, Plato's citations of the poets are also reflective of a widespread—but in Plato's view reprehensible—4th century Athenian practice of treating poetry as a compendium of absolute and undeniable truths and of appropriating it only for self-serving purposes, instead of using it as a springboard for philosophical discussion. In this paper I restrict my attention to the Theaetetus with a view to scrutinizing the intricate and sophisticated ways in which Plato tackles not so much the cited poetic quotations and paraphrases per se, as their reception and handling by his contemporaries. More specifically, I examine three explicit Homeric citations (152e, 153c-d, and 194c). Although in all three cases Socrates embarks upon an allegorical interpretation of Homer, the authority that he allegedly lays upon his proposed readings eventually proves to be merely a masquerade. I suggest that as well as parodying the allegorical method of interpretation, Socrates' treatment of the Homeric citations is also philosophically significant.

The intracellular pathogen Listeria monocytogenes is distinguished by its ability to invade and replicate within mammalian cells. Remarkably, of the 15 serovars within the genus, strains belonging to serovar 4b cause the majority of listeriosis clinical cases and outbreaks. The Listeria O-antigens are defined by subtle structural differences amongst the peptidoglycan-associated wall-teichoic acids (WTAs), and their specific glycosylation patterns. Here, we outline the genetic determinants required for WTA decoration in serovar 4b L. monocytogenes, and demonstrate the exact nature of the 4b-specific antigen. We show that challenge by bacteriophages selects for surviving clones that feature mutations in genes involved in teichoic acid glycosylation, leading to a loss of galactose from both wall teichoic acid and lipoteichoic acid molecules, and a switch from serovar 4b to 4d. Surprisingly, loss of this galactose decoration not only prevents phage adsorption, but leads to a complete loss of surface-associated Internalin B (InlB),the inability to form actin tails, and a virulence attenuation in vivo. We show that InlB specifically recognizes and attaches to galactosylated teichoic acid polymers, and is secreted upon loss of this modification, leading to a drastically reduced cellular invasiveness. Consequently, these phage-insensitive bacteria are unable to interact with cMet and gC1q-R host cell receptors, which normally trigger cellular uptake upon interaction with InlB. Collectively, we provide detailed mechanistic insight into the dual role of a surface antigen crucial for both phage adsorption and cellular invasiveness, demonstrating a trade-off between phage resistance and virulence in this opportunistic pathogen.

Early identification and adequate treatment of actinic cheilitis (AC), which affects the lower lip vermillion and is considered a precursor of squamous cell carcinoma, is mandatory. Photodynamic therapy (PDT) has been successfully used in AC. PDT with the use of daylight (DLPDT) is equally effective and more convenient than the conventional PDT. Data on short and long-term efficacy of DLPDT in AC are limited. Our primary purpose was to assess efficacy of DLPDT in AC as well as safety and tolerance. Twenty-two individuals with histologically confirmed AC received 2 MAL (5-aminolevulinic acid)-DLPDT sessions 1 week apart. Patients were evaluated clinically 3, 6, and 12 months after treatment. Non-complete responders were biopsied and excluded from the study if histological alterations were indicative of AC. Adverse events were recorded from baseline to the end of the 12-month follow-up period. Twenty patients completed the study. Overall, complete clinical response 12 months after treatment was 80% (16/20), while an association between treatment response and grade of dysplasia was observed ( p  = 0.016). With respect to response by grade, complete clinical response achieved in grade I AC was 100% (12/12) and 50% (4/8) in grade II AC. Main adverse events included mild erythema, oedema, and scaling, with no pain associated with DLPDT. According to our results, DLPDT seems to be of significant benefit for the treatment of grade I AC. Combination with the other treatment modalities could improve the efficacy in grade II AC. Further studies are needed for the assessment of late recurrences.

Assessment is an essential part of education, both for teachers who assess their students as well as learners who may evaluate themselves. Multiple-choice questions (MCQ) are one of the most popular types of knowledge assessment, e.g., in medical education, as they can be automatically graded and can cover a wide range of learning items. However, the creation of high-quality MCQ items is a time-consuming task. The recent advent of Large Language Models (LLM), such as Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT), caused a new momentum for automatic question generation solutions. Still, evaluating generated questions according to the best practices for MCQ item writing is needed to ensure docimological quality. In this article, we propose an analysis of the quality of LLM-generated MCQs. We employ zero-shot approaches in two domains, namely computer science and medicine. In the former, we make use of 3 GPT-based services to generate MCQs. In the latter, we developed a plugin for the Moodle learning management system that generates MCQs based on learning material. We compare the generated MCQs against common multiple-choice item writing guidelines. Among the major challenges, we determined that while LLMs are certainly useful in generating MCQs more efficiently, they sometimes create broad items with ambiguous keys or implausible distractors. Human oversight is also necessary to ensure instructional alignment between generated items and course contents. Finally, we propose solutions for AQG developers.