Network Group (Czechia)

Access to cross-border clinical trials may represent the sole therapeutic option for children living with rare diseases for which no approved medicines exist. Many children are excluded from participation in trials due to language restrictions. There are insufficient comprehensive analyses of the experiences and preferences of parents across Europe concerning participation and exclusion of their child in international clinical trials, particularly regarding language support during enrollment in cross-border clinical research studies. An anonymous online survey was designed and translated into 22 official European languages to collect data from parents of children living with a disease across Europe. The survey included five sections: (1) sociodemographic information; (2) experience participating in a clinical trial; (3) experience in cases where the patient was unable to take part in a study abroad; (4) experience participating in a clinical trial abroad; and (5) preferences regarding decentralized trial options. 1,436 responses were analyzed from parents across 34 European countries. 55.7% of the parents reported being able to communicate in English. 10.7% had prior clinical trial experience, of whom 30.1% traveled abroad to enable their child to participate. Among those reporting being excluded from cross-border trials, 34.7% cited language barriers or country of residence as the reason. Most families expressed a strong willingness to accept decentralized trial options, regardless of where the study may be conducted. Accommodating language translation to permit participation in a clinical trial abroad is feasible. While a significant percentage of caregivers of pediatric patients in Europe could communicate in English, approximately one-third of those excluded from clinical trials cited language barriers or country of residence as the reason. When translation was required, the most commonly offered solution was the use of professional interpreters, an accommodation that could enable broader patient participation in essential research.

National privacy laws diverge between the European Union and United States, hindering transatlantic health data exchange and slowing AI-driven medical innovation. In response, the German Ministry of Health launched the pre-competitive Data for Health initiative, leading to the BRIDGE Pilot Study (2023-2025), a researcher-led effort to address this regulatory and legal gap. Using a mixed-methods approach, including structured surveys (n = 56 expert responses), ranking of steps via relative importance indexing, and 4 Delphi meetings, experts co-developed a practical framework composed of 30 steps in 3 consecutive phases for legally compliant and technically interoperable EU-US health data collaboration. The framework emphasizes early data protection assessments, secure transfer protocols, and iterative governance checks. The final consensus framework provides a stepwise guide to navigate regulatory and legal complexities and operationalize cross-border research. Ongoing input from researchers and stakeholders will help ensure the framework remains adaptable and provides a clear, scalable foundation for cross-border health data exchange.

The length of parallel pipelines for transporting petroleum is continuously increasing. Leaks or explosions in these pipelines can cause devastating consequences. Therefore, this paper focuses on oil pool fires caused by pipeline leaks, specifically examining a segment of the China-Myanmar parallel pipelines. Numerical simulations of fire and explosion scenarios are conducted to investigate the impacts of oil leakage and fire accidents on the adjacent natural gas pipeline. The results indicate that oil vapor concentration and the size of leakage apertures are the two most critical factors influencing such accidents. Risk levels are ranked from highest to lowest as thermal radiation intensity, temperature difference, and explosion shock wave. Notably, thermal radiation poses the greatest hazard, with its risk level potentially reaching Level I. Finally, this paper recommends that the safety distance determined by thermal radiation be given special consideration during the design phase of parallel pipelines.

Massive expansion of digital engagements in financial industry is driving a growing demand for modern, flexible and intelligent cloud security frameworks. To this end, we introduce a novel AI-empowered cloud security model with generative intelligence to strengthen fraud detection and regulation enforcement for the infrastructure. The model combines large language models (LLMs) and GANs to simulate attack surfaces, Artificial nodes/trainers), anomalies and synthetic data for active threat prevention. And, with our deep learning-based behavior analytics, it continues to mature as the industry’s most advanced security control to address benchmark insider threats and also delivers real-time control monitoring of cardholder data for established international financial standards such as PCI DSS, and privacy-oriented GDPR requirements. A layered defense mechanism using federated learning and zero-trust principles is employed to not only preserve integrity of the data and privacy but also transparency within a distributed cloud. On real-life financial data we have an average accuracy gain of 96.3% and a decrease in the number of false positives by approximately 32% compared to standard rule-based systems. The results show that generative AI can transform cloud security operations in finance, while retaining security conditions and regulatory assurance in high-threat digital environments.

BackgroundEmergency department cardiac arrest is increasingly recognized as a distinct entity, but little is known about its epidemiology in Asia. We compared patient characteristics, arrest etiologies, resuscitation processes, and outcomes between two tertiary university hospitals in Thailand.MethodsWe conducted a retrospective cohort study of adults (≥18 years) with emergency department cardiac arrest at Chiang Mai University Hospital (January 2020–December 2024) and Khon Kaen University Hospital (November 2021–December 2024). Cases were identified using institutional electronic cardiac arrest registries. Data included demographics, comorbidities, presumed etiology (5H/5T framework), initial rhythm, resuscitation processes, and outcomes. Primary outcomes were return of spontaneous circulation, survival to hospital admission, and survival to discharge.ResultsA total of 261 cases were analyzed (192 from Chiang Mai University Hospital and 69 from Khon Kaen University Hospital). The median age was 65 years (interquartile range 53–75), and 56.7% were male. Most arrests were non-traumatic (72.8%), and pulseless electrical activity predominated (76.6%). Hypoxia (43.3%), acidosis (33.7%), and hypovolemia (31.0%) were the leading presumed causes. Institutional variation was observed in comorbidity profiles, presumed etiologies, ventilation strategies, and resuscitation durations. Median cardiopulmonary resuscitation duration was longer at Khon Kaen University Hospital (9 vs. 6 min). No statistically significant differences in survival outcomes were detected between hospitals.ConclusionEmergency department cardiac arrest in Thailand mirrors global patterns, with a predominance of non-shockable rhythms and low discharge survival rates. Observed institutional variation in patient characteristics and resuscitation processes highlights the need for standardized protocols, training, and the development of national emergency department cardiac arrest registries to support quality improvement in low- and middle-income country settings.

We report the first human use of intranasal seletracetam (SEL) to prevent reflex seizures. A patient with epilepsy with reading-induced seizures on levetiracetam (3,000 mg/day) continued to experience reading-induced focal seizures with preserved consciousness. Detectable in serum within 2 minutes of intranasal administration, 30 mg seletracetam delayed seizure onset from 1:56 (placebo) to 4:17 minutes post-stimulus onset. A second 30 mg dose fully prevented seizures during 25 minutes of reading. Electroencephalogram (EEG) spike-frequency declined dose-dependently (3.1/min at placebo to 1.6/min after second dose), with reduced spike-propagation on magnetoencephalography (MEG). Our findings support SEL as a promising non-benzodiazepine acute seizure prevention and provide insight into reflex seizure dynamics. ANN NEUROL 2026;99:535-539.

This paper describes the design of a Wide Beam Circularly Polarized (CP) Cross Dipole Antenna with parasitic enhancements to achieve Axial Ratio Beam Width (ARBW) and Half Power Beam Width (HPBW) of <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\sim 100$</tex> Deg and Gain <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$&gt;6 \mathbf{~ d B}$</tex>. Such wide band antennas are of particular interest in COSPAS SARSAT missions which includes tracking of GNSS, INSS, GPS Satellites. Few bandwidth enhancement techniques like Coplanar ring, Conical back plane, Slotted Cylindrical sleeve have been demonstrated in this paper. This design is less lossy compared to hybrid coupler based CP antenna designs. Simulated results show that designs with parasitic additions have return loss <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$&gt;10 ~\text{dB}$</tex> and cover GPS L1 <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$(1.559 \text{GHz}-1.610$</tex> GHz) with good axial ratio (AR) performance and gain enhancement of up to 4 dB compared to Cross Dipole (CD) Antenna. The parasitic enhancements have brought out symmetrical CP performance in XOZ and YOZ planes which is important for better signal reception in GNSS applications.