The science behind soft skills: Do’s and Don’ts for early career researchers and beyond. A review paper from the EU-CardioRNA COST Action CA17129

peer reviewedSoft skills are the elementary management, personal, and interpersonal abilities that are vital for an individual to be efficient at workplace or in their personal life. Each work place requires different set of soft skills. Thus, in addition to scientific/technical skills that are easier to access within a short time frame, several key soft skills are essential for the success of a researcher in today’s international work environment. In this paper, the trainees and trainers of the EU-CardioRNA COST Action CA17129 training school on soft skills present basic and advanced soft skills for early career researchers. Here, we particularly emphasize on the importance of transferable and presentation skills, ethics, literature reading and reviewing, research protocol and grant writing, networking, and career opportunities for researchers. All these skills are vital but are often overlooked by some scholars. We also provide tips to ace in aforementioned skills that are crucial in a day-to-day life of early and late career researchers in academia and industry.</ns4:p

Μορφολογική Επίγνωση και Κατάκτηση της Ορθογραφίας και της Γραμματικής

Η παρούσα εργασία αποτελεί μια ανασκόπηση της ερευνητικής βιβλιογραφίας. Μελετά τη σημασία της μορφολογικής επίγνωσης και της κατάκτησής της από τους μαθητές καθώς και τη συμβολή της στην κατάκτηση της ορθογραφημένης γραφής και της μορφοσύνταξης. Συγκεντρώνει τα είδη των ασκήσεων που έχουν χρησιμοποιηθεί σε κριτήρια που αξιολογούν την κατάκτηση της μορφολογικής επίγνωσης και των μορφοσυντακτικών ικανοτήτων. Τέλος, επιχειρεί μια ανασκόπηση της διεθνούς κι ελληνικής βιβλιογραφίας, που αφορά τη σχέσης της μορφολογικής επίγνωσης και των επιμέρους πτυχών της με την ορθογραφημένη γραφή των παιδιών και την καλλιέργεια των μορφοσυντακτικών τους ικανοτήτων.This paper is a review of the research bibliography. It aims to study the importance of morphological awareness and its acquisition by students as well as its contribution to the acquisition of spelling and morphology. It gathers the types of exercises that have been used in criteria that evaluate the acquisition of morphological awareness and morpho-syntactic skills. Finally, it attempts a review of the international and greek bibliography, which deals with the relationship between morphological awareness and its individual aspects with students΄ spelling skills and the development of their morpho-syntactic skills

PPARβ/δ at the crossroads of energy metabolism, mitochondrial quality control and redox balance

Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor β/δ (PPARβ/δ), member of the PPAR subfamily of nuclear receptors, is highly expressed in tissues with high rates of oxidative metabolism, such as the heart, skeletal muscle and liver. PPARβ/δ exerts its transcriptional control by direct binding on specific response elements on target genes promoters with the help of cofactors resulting in transactivation or transrepression of multiple genes involved in energy metabolism, mitochondrial biogenesis, or antioxidant defense. Several pre-clinical studies have shown that reduced PPARβ/δ expression in the heart is associated with diminished cardiac performance, impaired contractility and relaxation and even decreased survival in cardiomyopathies with distinct aetiologies while ligand-mediated activation or overexpression of PPARβ/δ has been shown to be protective in the setting of ischemia/reperfusion injury and several types of cardiomyopathies (dilated, hypertrophic or diabetic). PPARβ/δ stimulates fatty acid and glucose uptake as well as fatty acid oxidation but does not control triglyceride synthesis. In parallel, PPARβ/δ upregulates PGC1α, which is the critical regulator of mitochondrial biogenesis, and is also associatedwith mediators of mitochondrial fusion/fission and components of mitochondrial respiration. In addition, PPARβ/δ has been linked to multiple antioxidant defense mechanisms in the heart, including SOD1 and 2, Catalase, ALDH2 or NF-κB related pathways. Overall, this review summarizes the research data on the role of PPARβ/δ in the regulation of cardiac energy metabolism, antioxidant defense systems and mitochondrial quality control. Those data suggest the potential of PPARβ/δ activation as a therapeutic target for patients with cardiometabolic disorders