Europe's Space capabilities for the benefit of the Arctic

In recent years, the Arctic region has acquired an increasing environmental, social, economic and strategic importance. The Arctic’s fragile environment is both a direct and key indicator of the climate change and requires specific mitigation and adaptation actions. The EU has a clear strategic interest in playing a key role and is actively responding to the impacts of climate change safeguarding the Arctic’s fragile ecosystem, ensuring a sustainable development, particularly in the European part of the Arctic. The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre has recently completed a study aimed at identifying the capabilities and relevant synergies across the four domains of the EU Space Programme: earth observation, satellite navigation, satellite communications, and space situational awareness (SSA). These synergies are expected to be key enablers of new services that will have a high societal impact in the region, which could be developed in a more cost-efficient and rapid manner. Similarly, synergies will also help exploit to its full extent operational services that are already deployed in the Arctic (e.g., the Copernicus emergency service or the Galileo Search and rescue service could greatly benefit from improved satellite communications connectivity in the region).JRC.E.2-Technology Innovation in Securit

Appropriate referral and selection of patients with chronic pain for spinal cord stimulation: European consensus recommendations and e-health tool

Background: Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) is an established treatment for chronic neuropathic, neuropathic-like and ischaemic pain. However, the heterogeneity of patients in daily clinical practice makes it often challenging to determine which patients are eligible for this treatment, resulting in undesirable practice variations. This study aimed to establish patient-specific recommendations for referral and selection of SCS in chronic pain. Methods: A multidisciplinary European panel used the RAND/UCLA Appropriateness Method (RUAM) to assess the appropriateness of (referral for) SCS for 386 clinical scenarios in four pain areas: chronic low back pain and/or leg pain, complex regional pain syndrome, neuropathic pain syndromes and ischaemic pain syndromes. In addition, the panel identified a set of psychosocial factors that are relevant to the decision for SCS treatment. Results: Appropriateness of SCS was strongly determined by the neuropathic or neuropathic-like pain component, location and spread of pain, anatomic abnormalities and previous response to therapies targeting pain processing (e.g. nerve block). Psychosocial factors considered relevant for SCS selection were as follows: lack of engagement, dysfunctional coping, unrealistic expectations, inadequate daily activity level, problematic social support, secondary gain, psychological distress and unwillingness to reduce high-dose opioids. An educational e-health tool was developed that combines clinical and psychosocial factors into an advice on referral/selection for SCS. Conclusions: The RUAM was useful to establish a consensus on patient-specific criteria for referral/selection for SCS in chronic pain. The e-health tool may help physicians learn to apply an integrated approach of clinical and psychosocial factors. Significance: Determining the eligibility of SCS in patients with chronic pain requires careful consideration of a variety of clinical and psychosocial factors. Using a systematic approach to combine evidence from clinical studies and expert opinion, a multidisciplinary European expert panel developed detailed recommendations to support appropriate referral and selection for SCS in chronic pain. These recommendations are available as an educational e-health tool (https://www.scstool.org/)

Hodnocení plaveninového režimu na zdrojnicích Berounky

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Aplikace a prezentace historického fotografického materiálu v expozicích a instalacích paměťových institucí

The aim of this methodology is to give an overview of the ways in which historical photographic material can be used when creating the exposition, whether it be a short-term or long-term exposition, an exposition exclusively devoted to photography, or an exhibition in which photographs and films form only an accompanying backdrop. The instructions given in the individual chapters of the methodology should provide accessible and feasible solutions to workers who build the exposition

A Surveillance System for Enhancing the Safety of Rescue Teams

The article summarizes preliminary results of the research and development of a system focused on enhancing the safety of teams participating in the integrated rescue system managing extraordinary events or crisis situations (fire, mass disaster, release of harmful industrial substances), and on the support in the course of training. Individual partial technical solutions are mentioned, which should lead to providing automatized telemetric monitoring equipment in a more resistant form making it possible to recognize the nature and intensity of the motion, including the determination of the topical and total energy outputs, monitoring of environmental parameters (temperature, smoke, etc.) and back analysis of the intervention course or training in real time, and the monitoring of health-physiological parameters and signalling risk conditions (physical exhaustion, stress, overheating, etc.) under extreme measures

Role for pituitary adenylate cyclase activating polypeptide in cystitis-induced plasticity of micturition reflexes

PACAP peptides are expressed and regulated in sensory afferents of the micturition pathway. Although these studies have implicated PACAP in bladder control, the physiological significance of these observations has not been firmly established. To clarify these issues, the roles of PACAP and PACAP signaling in micturition and cystitis were examined in receptor characterization and physiological assays. PACAP receptors were identified in various tissues of the micturition pathway including bladder detrusor smooth muscle and urothelium. Bladder smooth muscle expressed heterogeneously PAC(1)null, PAC(1)HOP1 and VPAC(2) receptors; the urothelium was more restricted in expressing preferentially the PAC(1) receptor subtype only. Immunocytochemical studies for PAC(1) receptors were consistent with these tissue distributions. Furthermore, the addition of 50 – 100 nM PACAP27 or PACAP38 to isolated bladder strips elicited transient contractions and sustained increases in the amplitude of spontaneous phasic contractions. Treatment of the bladder strips with tetrodotoxin (1 μM) did not alter the spontaneous phasic contractions suggesting direct PACAP effects on bladder smooth muscle. PACAP also increased the amplitude of nerve-evoked contractions. By contrast, VIP had no direct effects on bladder smooth muscle. In a rat cyclophosphamide (CYP)-induced cystitis paradigm, intrathecal or intravesical administration of PAC(1) receptor antagonist, PACAP6-38, reduced cystitis-induced bladder overactivity. In sum, these studies support roles for PACAP in micturition and suggest that inflammation-induced plasticity in PACAP expression in peripheral and central micturition pathways contribute to bladder dysfunction with cystitis