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The emerging need to tackle climate change and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions has led to the consolidation of interest in renewable energy sources (RES) setting specific targets in the European area. To achieve the ambitious targets set, Member States are given the opportunity to cooperate with one or more of their developing neighboring countries. The aim of this paper is to develop a methodological framework based on the combination of the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis with the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the Fuzzy Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (Fuzzy TOPSIS) methods for adopting the most appropriate strategic plan, in order to establish a successful energy cooperation that will create beneficial conditions for all the involved parties. The results could be important in facilitating decision makers to assess the role and design of this cooperation mechanism. Key insights will also emerge with regards to opportunities for energy strategy cooperation between Europe and its neighboring countries.

Bullying is an everlasting phenomenon and the first, yet difficult, step towards the solution is its detection. Conventional approaches for bullying incidence identification include questionnaires, conversations and psychological tests. Here, unlike the conventional approaches, two experiments are proposed that involve visual stimuli with cases of bullying- and non-bullying- related ones, set within a 2D (simple video preview) and a Virtual Reality (VR) (immersive video preview) context. In both experimental settings, brain activity is recorded using high density (HD) (256 channels) electroencephalogram (EEG), and analyzed to identify the bullying stimuli type (bullying/non-bullying) and context (2D/VR). The proposed classification analysis uses a convolutional neural network (CNN), applying deep learning on the oscillatory modes (OCMs) embedded within the raw HD EEG data. The extraction of OCMs from the HD EEG data is achieved with swarm decomposition (SWD), which efficiently accounts for the non-stationarity and noise contamination of the raw HD EEG data. Experimental results from 17 subjects indicate that the new SWD/CNN approach achieves high discrimination accuracy (AUC = 0.987 between bullying/non-bullying stimuli type; AUC = 0.975, between bullying/non-bullying stimuli type and 2D/VR context), paving the way for better understanding of how brain’s responses could act as indicators of bullying experience within immersive environments.

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Introduction: Lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer mortality in men and women and around the world. Approximately 90% of cases of lung cancer are caused by smoking and the use of tobacco products. However, other factors such as asbestos, air pollution and chronic infections can contribute to pulmonary carcinogenesis. Lung cancer is divided into two broad histological categories, which develop and spread different small cell lung carcinomas and non-small cell lung carcinomas. The treatment options for lung cancer include surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy and targeted treatments. Tumor induced immune suppression is vital for malignant progression. Immunotherapies act by strengthening the patient's innate tendency for an immune response and give positive promise to patients with non-small cell lung cancer and small cell lung cancer. Immune checkpoint inhibitors are a new approach to cancer therapies. Just as immune therapies include a new approach to cancer biology, the toxicities associated with these factors have created new challenges in clinical practice. Materials & Methods: Patients (218) aged 40-80 years were treated with either chemotherapy or immunotherapy. Their response to treatment and any subsequent adverse drug reactions were studied. Results: 69% of patients were treated with chemotherapy and 31% were treated with immunotherapy. The type of treatment had a statistically significant effect on the undesirable effects of the treatment. Conclusions: The type of treatment was statistically significant in responding to the treatment and treatment side effects but not in the rate of death.