Creative Systems Engineering (Greece)

A newly developed series of polylactide (PLA)-based composites filled with hybrid lignin–carbon nanotube (CNTs) particles were studied using thermal and dielectric techniques. The low CNT content (up to 3 wt%) aimed to create conductive networks while enhancing particle–polymer adhesion. For comparison, PLA composites based on lignin and CNTs were also examined. Although infrared spectroscopy showed no significant interactions, calorimetry and dielectric spectroscopy revealed a rigid interfacial PLA layer exhibiting restricted mobility. The interfacial polymer amount was found to increase monotonically with the particle content. The hybrid-filled PLA composites exhibited electrical conductivity, whereas PLA/Lignin and PLA/CNTs remained insulators. The result was indicative of a synergistic effect between lignin and CNTs, leading to lowering of the percolation threshold to 3 wt%, being almost ideal for sustainable conductive printing inks. Despite the addition of lignin and CNTs at different loadings, the glass transition temperature of PLA (60 °C) decreased slightly (softer composites) by 1–2 K in the composites, while the melting temperature remained stable at ~175 °C, favoring efficient processing. Regarding crystallization, which is typically slow in PLA, the hybrid lignin/CNT particles promoted crystal nucleation without increasing the total crystallizable fraction. Overall, these findings highlight the potential of eco-friendly conductive PLA composites for new-generation applications, such as printed electronics.

Sleep disorders are often complained by cancer patients and can last years after the end of therapies, leading to different negative consequences. Non-pharmacological strategies such as exercise interventions may be considered to counteract this phenomenon. The literature supports the beneficial effects of aerobic training (AT), while evidence on resistance training (RT) is scarce. Accordingly, our systematic review aims to investigate the potential novel effect of RT on sleep outcomes in cancer survivors. The literature search was conducted on MEDLINE (Pubmed), Web of Science, Scopus, and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials databases, including only randomized controlled trials (RCTs). The screening procedure was conducted using the web-based software COVIDENCE. Sleep outcomes assessed through self-reported questionnaires or objective sleep measurements were extracted from RCTs recruiting cancer survivors of any age and gender, on or off treatment. The risk of bias (RoB) for each study was assessed using the Cochrane RoB 2 tool for RCTs. Meta-analytic syntheses were performed on sleep quality and insomnia. A total of 21 studies were included in the review. Considering the mean percentage differences of all studies combined, promising positive results were found after combined aerobic and resistance exercise program (COMB) for sleep quality (-19%) and sleep disturbance (-17.3%). The meta-analysis results showed significant improvement for both sleep quality and insomnia (d = 0.28, SE: 0.11, Z = 2.51, p < 0.01, 95% CI: 0.07-0.49 and d = 0.43, SE: 0.20, Z = 2.18, p = 0.029, 95% CI: 0.07-0.49, respectively). RT interventions of 60 minutes per session, performed 2-3 times a week for 12 weeks, with exercise intensity ranging from 60% to 80% of one-repetition maximum can be administered to cancer survivors, aiming to improve sleep outcomes.

BackgroundThis systematic review aims to identify the effects of exercise interventions in patients with breast cancer (BCP) and survivors (BCS) on selected variables of physical fitness.MethodsA comprehensive literature search was conducted using Medline and Scopus. Randomized controlled trials with isolated exercise interventions in BCP and BCS women (< 5 years from therapy completion) were included. The risk of bias (RoB) assessment was conducted using the Cochrane RoB-2-tool. Variables regarding cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF), strength (ST), fatigue (F) and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) were discussed.ResultsOf the 336 studies initially identified, 22 met all the inclusion criteria and were deemed eligible. RoB assessment indicated that the studies had predominantly “some concerns” or had “low RoB”, with only 3 studies presenting a “high RoB”. The mean duration and frequency of exercise interventions were 19 weeks and 3 sessions/week, performed at moderate intensity (65% VO2max and 66% 1RM, for aerobic and resistance-training interventions, respectively).ConclusionsExercise interventions seem to be a valuable strategy in BCP to avoid the decline of CRF, ST, F and HRQoL. Conversely, improved physical function among BCS is observed for the same variables. Resistance training and combined interventions seem to provide the most encouraging variations of the selected outcomes.PROSPERO registration IDCRD42021237917.

In this paper, we present a two-stage neural quality estimation model that uses multilevel task learning for translation quality estimation (QE) at the sentence, word, and phrase levels. Our approach is based on an end-to-end stacked neural model named Predictor-Estimator, which has two stages consisting of a neural word prediction model and neural QE model. To efficiently train the two-stage model, a stack propagation method is applied, thereby enabling us to jointly learn the word prediction model and QE model in a single learning mode. In addition, we deploy multilevel task learning with stack propagation, where the training examples available for all QE subtasks (i.e., sentence/word/phrase levels) are used to train a Predictor-Estimator for a specific subtask. All of our submissions to the QE task of WMT17 are ensembles that combine a set of neural models trained under different settings of varying dimensionalities and shuffling training examples, eventually achieving the best performances for all subtasks at the sentence, word, and phrase levels.

Econews is an Ident for an enviromental television show for a Greek TV channel. The client wanted a concept that would reinforce the enviromental brand of the show. They expected photoreal and detailed motion work that maintains a visual consistency with the channel's brand visuals.