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In light of the accumulating evidence for survival benefit coming from the use of macrolides for community-acquired pneumonia (CAP), a group of experts from the field of internal medicine and infectious diseases frame a position statement on the use of macrolides for the management of bacterial CAP and for infection by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). The statement is framed taking into consideration existing publications and own research experience. The main content of this statement is that the combination of one β-lactam and a macrolide should be the first treatment of choice for patients with severe bacterial CAP. Severity is assessed as scoring 2 or more points on the CURB65 scoring system of severity or as pneumonia severity index III to V or C-reactive protein more than 150 mg/l; the suggested macrolide is either azithromycin or clarithromycin. The experts also suggest that in COVID-19 pneumonia, the combination of one β-lactam and a macrolide should be reserved only when there is strong suspicion of bacterial co-infection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assesses the homogenous approach and policy measures towards small and medium sized enterprises (SME), adopted by the `White Paper on Growth, Competitiveness and Employment' and by national policies in Greece. Role of SME in the Greek economy; Structural characteristics of SME; European Union policy measures in favor of SME.

The article offers information on the schedule of the 34th Meeting of the European Society of Neuroradiology (ESNR), the 18th Advanced Course and the 2nd Interventional Course in Athens, Greece from September 17 to 20, 2009. Some of the studies presented include one on myelin maturation and white matter development in an embryologic perspective. Other research focus on radiologic-pathologic correlation in white matter diseases and classifications of spinal cord arteriovenous malformations.

This paper aims to assess the level of implementation of Green Public Procurements (GPP) in the Region of Western Macedonia—Greece, which is currently under energy transition from lignite to a RES-based energy model. By that assessment, a linkage between the GPP framework and energy transition is created, revealing the distinct GPP criteria that should be adopted by energy-transition regions, which have the potential to strengthen the transition process. Rather than implementing the total number of the GPP criteria, literature and methodology findings indicated that specific GPP criteria are directly connected to energy transition and should be primarily adopted by policymakers in comparison to the rest. These criteria are Electricity, Road Transport, Waste Water Infrastructure and Road Lighting and Traffic Signals. By assessing a sample of 31 procurement officials and scientific experts in the five major municipalities of the region, the implementation level of GPP criteria was measured average-to-low, implying that there is a considerable scope by the region's main municipal authorities to adopt them to a greater extent. Statistical correlations using Spearman's rank correlation analysis between specific GPP criteria were also identified, indicating distinct interconnections between the criteria pairs that imply commonalities in the implementation framework of GPP. The paper's implications for future research led to the identification of specific GPP criteria in the public procurement process, that have the potential to enhance green sustainability and boost energy transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regions play an important role in the global economy by driving research and innovation policies through a major tool, the Regional Innovation System (RIS). The RIS is a social system that encompasses the systematic interaction of the various organizations that comprise it, to improve local knowledge and innovation. It consists of interconnections of various public and private sector institutions, whose activities and interactions create, introduce and diffuse innovations. This paper outlines the methodology employed in developing and validating a mathematical model of Regional Innovation Systems, utilizing the system dynamics approach. To provide a demonstration of the aforementioned concept, the proposed model will then be implemented in the RIS of two specific regions in Greece, namely Western and Central Macedonia. Within this context, various policies will be formulated to modify the indicators of Smart Technology, with the objective of assessing their influence on the overall regional development of the aforementioned regions. The model focuses on the functional structure of the RIS, separating it in six diverse, interacting subsystems consisting of different components, captured by a total of 38 different factors which can be quantitatively assessed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing availability of smart meter data has facilitated the development of energy-saving services like demand response, personalized energy feedback, and non-intrusive-load-monitoring applications, all of which heavily rely on advanced machine learning algorithms trained on energy consumption datasets. To ensure the accuracy and reliability of these services, real-world smart meter data collection is crucial. The Plegma dataset described in this paper addresses this need bfy providing whole- house aggregate loads and appliance-level consumption measurements at 10-second intervals from 13 different households over a period of one year. It also includes environmental data such as humidity and temperature, building characteristics, demographic information, and user practice routines to enable quantitative as well as qualitative analysis. Plegma is the first high-frequency electricity measurements dataset in Greece, capturing the consumption behavior of people in the Mediterranean area who use devices not commonly included in other datasets, such as AC and electric-water boilers. The dataset comprises 218 million readings from 88 installed meters and sensors. The collected data are available in CSV format. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Samos Island (Aegean Sea) Earthquake occurred on 30 October 2020. It produced a tsunami that impacted coastal communities, ground shaking that was locally amplified in some areas and that led to collapse of structures with 118 fatalities in both Greece and Turkey, and wide-ranging geotechnical effects including rockfalls, landsliding, and liquefaction. As a result of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the reconnaissance of this event did not involve the deployment of international teams, as would be typical for an event of this size. Instead, following initial deployments of separate Greek and Turkish teams, the reconnaissance and documentation efforts were managed in a coordinated manner with the assistance of international partners. This coordination ultimately produced a multi-agency joint report published on the 2-month anniversary of the earthquake, and this special issue. This paper provides an overview of the reconnaissance activities undertaken to document the effects of this important event and summarizes key lessons spanning topic areas from seismology to emergency response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we explore the difficulties undergraduates from Greek Higher Educational Institutions faced during the transition to online learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic. By analyzing qualitative data from an online survey (N = 2093), we were able to identify the barriers undergraduates encountered during this transition and make inferences about the quality of the way online learning was implemented. The most frequently reported barriers include problems that undergraduates perceived as being caused by their lecturers, internet connection issues during an online lecture and the perceived limited social interactions that synchronous environments can afford. The paper argues that the way online learning was implemented by Greek Higher Educational Institutions did not result a meaningful learning experience for undergraduates. Our results are relevant to universities that are either forced in implementing emergency online protocols or wish to support their undergraduates' learning experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oil refineries are among industrial installations that are vulnerable to climate extreme events, whose frequency and intensity have been increasing over the last decades. Building resilience in resources to withstand climate-related hazards and to recover fast at low human and material cost, for changing climate conditions, is required. In this paper, we present an action research effort for the design of a viable decentralized climate-resilience-providing virtual organization in an oil refinery in Greece using the Viable System Model. The VIPLAN method was employed for the methodological design of a distributed Climate Resilience Providing Organisation for the case of a refinery facility in Greece. The paper presents the process and the results of this effort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past few decades, large food banks that collect, warehouse, and redistribute food have become institutionalized across Europe. Although food banks gained increased visibility as important food relief mechanisms during the covid pandemic in 2020 and 2021, the crisis also highlighted their structural weaknesses and the fragility of the charity-based emergency food system. In particular, many European food banks faced higher costs, lower food stocks, uneven food donations, and lower numbers of volunteers and personnel as demand for food relief increased sharply. Also, many food banks lacked personal health and safety equipment for front-line staff and volunteers, many of whom were vulnerable or aged, thus forcing the closure of some charities due to health concerns. Yet, the impact of the pandemic was uneven across the continent as the covid pandemic strengthened some food banks while others were weakened. To explore these dynamics in detail, this paper utilizes in-depth interviews and surveys of key food bank operators in the Netherlands, Norway, and Greece to analyze how and why European food bank systems fared so differently from the pandemic. In short, the findings in this paper reveal how the Norwegian food bank system leveraged its position to increase fundraising and visibility, while the Netherlands food bank system suffered from long-term structural weaknesses, and the Greek food bank system was further embroiled in government tensions that threatened its existence. The preexisting structure of food bank systems, broader political economy, and historical context significantly impacted how food relief networks fared during the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to enlarge our understanding of how the creative industries affect an economy's innovation activities both by developing and introducing innovations as part of their business activities and stimulating innovation in other sectors. It applies a two-stage analysis. As to the first stage, it attempts to identify the innovation determinants of creative firms considering several characteristics of their founders and employees and different types of knowledge sources. In the second stage, the paper seeks to explore whether and how creative firms' innovative output helps their business clients from other (creative or non-creative) industries to innovate accounting for endogeneity issues. Our analysis is based on more than 1000 firms operating in various creative industries in 5 European countries (Italy, UK, Sweden, Denmark, Greece). The main findings in the first stage of the analysis suggest that younger founders and employees with creativity expertise are significantly associated with an increased probability of creative firms introducing both product and process innovation. In the second stage of analysis, we provide strong empirical evidence that creative industries support innovation in the wider economy. We show that the innovation output of creative firms constitutes a crucial input for the innovativeness of their business clients from other (creative or non-creative) industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the dynamic short-term and long-term relationships among real GDP per capita, energy consumption, urbanization, and carbon dioxide emissions within the framework of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis for Southeastern Europe (SEE) from 1997 to 2014. The evidence highlights an inverted U-shaped nexus between real GDP per capita and carbon dioxide emissions (i.e., the EKC hypothesis is verified in the long-run in the sample as a whole). The short-run estimates provide evidence of inverted U-shaped EKC only for Greece and Moldova. Two-way causal relationship between urbanization and pollutant emission was also established in the short-run, as well as one-way causality flowing from real GDP per capita to pollutant emission. The coefficients with the real GDP per capita and energy consumption are negative and statistically significant in the long-term. These findings indicate the existence of an error correction mechanism that drives the observed variables back to their equilibrium. Moreover, the findings show that the consistent increase in energy consumption has not reduced environmental pressures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The consumption of fermented foods has become an important dietary strategy to improve human health, and today, they account for a significant share in the international food market, with special emphasis on traditional or ethnic foods. Among fermented foods, table olives have a key position in the dietary preference of consumers around the Mediterranean basin and beyond. Greece has a long tradition in the production of table olives according to local craft-based processing methods. However, an extensive effort has been undertaken in the last decade to modernize the table olive industry and adopt scientifically based processing methods to produce the final products of high quality and consistency. During processing, the majority of components present in raw olives are transformed to render the product edible. Among these components, phenolic compounds have significant functional properties that may enhance the nutritional value of the final product. This review paper provides an up-to-date overview regarding the transformation of phenolic compounds during processing of the most economically important varieties of Greek table olives, including Halkidiki green olives, Kalamata and Conservolea natural black olives, and Thassos natural black dry-salted olives. The functional and antioxidant potential of Greek table olive varieties as well as their nutritional implications are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the effectiveness in the use of texture painting software packages, which are more commonly used in the film and game industries, as a method for detecting and recording carvings on non-planar surfaces. This new approach is demonstrated through a case study of the Piraeus Lion, a sculpture in Venice which has documented engravings that are subtle and have proven difficult to fully recorded and interpret using traditional approaches. Through the creation of a new digital documentation of the Piraeus Lion using Structure from Motion, the model was processed using existing methods and other experimental visualisation techniques. The outputs from these were then compared to the those from two software, Substance Painter and Mari. These software packages helped to visualise the carvings and showed that the method has potential for a wide range of uses, both within epigraphy and other fields of study relating to carvings on stone including rock art and runology. The presented method is intended to be used alongside existing digital and analogue methods as a tool for annotating, evaluating, and discovering new carvings in their original context. In particular, Substance Painter offers a repeatable, easy to use, and intuitive solution to creating easily distributable visualisations and annotated models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quantum mechanics (QM) is derived based on a universe composed solely of events, for example, outcomes of observables. Such an event universe is represented by a dendrogram (a finite tree) and in the limit of infinitely many events by the p-adic tree. The trees are endowed with an ultrametric expressing hierarchical relationships between events. All events are coupled through the tree structure. Such a holistic picture of event-processes was formalized within the Dendrographic Hologram Theory (DHT). The present paper is devoted to the emergence of QM from DHT. We used the generalization of the QM-emergence scheme developed by Smolin. Following this scheme, we did not quantize events but rather the differences between them and through analytic derivation arrived at Bohmian mechanics. We remark that, although Bohmian mechanics is not the main stream approach to quantum physics, it describes adequately all quantum experiments. Previously, we were able to embed the basic elements of general relativity (GR) into DHT, and now after Smolin-like quantization of DHT, we can take a step toward quantization of GR. Finally, we remark that DHT is nonlocal in the treelike geometry, but this nonlocality refers to relational nonlocality in the space of events and not Einstein's spatial nonlocality. By shifting from spatial nonlocality to relational we make Bohmian mechanics less exotic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the key determinants of economic growth, regional prosperity and sustainable development is entrepreneurship. This paper aims to identify proxies for entrepreneurship that can drive prosperity at the regional level, investigating the relationship between entrepreneurship and economic growth and development from a spatial econometric perspective in Greece. A spatial Durbin model was used across the 13 Greek regions for the period 2011–2016. Entrepreneurial activity, as measured by enterprise turnover, heavily affects economic development, employability and income inequality as depicted by gross domestic product per capita, unemployment and household income, respectively. The number of enterprises and research and development expenditure were not important factors. The latter supports a U-shaped relationship between public spending and economic growth. The contribution of this paper to the existing literature is the employment of spatial data models to identify determinants that may affect entrepreneurial development at a regional level, which in turn facilitates economic growth at a country (Greece) level. The advantage of spatial data analysis over conventional econometric models is that it takes into account regional proximity. The empirical findings may be used to potentially introduce appropriate policy measures to foster growth at the regional level, by capitalizing on the competitive advantages of each region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the spillover effects transmission mechanism between oil prices, oil price uncertainty and oil price volatility on labour market in Greece, using static and dynamic quantile connectedness methodology (Diebold and Yilmaz Diebold and Yilmaz, Int J Forecast 28:57–66, 2012; Ando et al. Ando T, Greenwood-Nimmo N, Shin Y (2018) 'Quantile connectedness: Modelling tail behavior in the topology of financial networks', Working Paper. https://ssrn.com/abstract=3164772.). There is empirical evidence that the oil price variable is the most influential node of the energy variables on hirings and firings, suggesting the endogeneity of the labour market variables. Rolling estimation analysis based on the quantile VAR to capture the volatility spillovers across the whole conditional distribution shows a large variation of the total connectedness index, which is responsive to exogenous adverse and beneficial shocks. Further, our results point to a strong effect due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the state intervention to sustain the pandemic on the labour market. Overall, the analysis reveals a substantial higher time-varying connectedness of the system at the tails of the distribution, indicating that changes in energy markets asymmetrically affect the Greek labour market in recessionary and flourishing states of the economy, rather than normal times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the drivers of research performance of 1431 economists from six European countries. Data from the Scopus database are collected. We compare the relative performance of economists from three northern European countries: Belgium, Denmark and Germany with three from the south: Greece, Italy and Portugal. Relative performance is measured as the deviation from the country average in both citations and papers. The dependent variables take the value of 1 if the productivity of the researcher is above the country average and 0 if it is below. Probit/logit analysis is employed and marginal effects are estimated to examine the significance of factors like the country of their PhD studies, gender and inbreeding at the national level. A US PhD or a German PhD affects negatively the relative productivity of German economists. Inbreeding at the national level (locally trained economists) reduces productivity among Greek, Italian and Portuguese economists. Gender is significant in the case of Denmark, Germany and Italy, but it does not affect productivity in Belgium, Greece and Portugal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2015 crisis of refugee policies saw an upgrade in the role of civil society organizations (CSOs) as service providers for the migrant population in Greece. CSOs attempted to substitute for the government's failure to provide a migration policy designed for the social integration of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers (MRAs). As a result, they have been overseeing a majority of services related to the integration of MRAs in the labour market. This paper aims to enrich the underdeveloped so far discussion on the role of CSOs in the integration of refugees and asylum seekers (RAs) into the Greek labour market. This will be attempted by adopting a qualitative approach. The paper is based on 34 interviews done in 2019, involving refugees, asylum seekers and representatives of third-sector organizations, namely non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and grassroots solidarity initiatives (GSIs) provide various activities that seek to improve the employability of refugees and asylum seekers and help them navigate the employment policies. The article concludes that the lack of a follow-up to the various actions, the fragmented funding schemes and the absence of a clear integration policy from public actors and support from the public administration lie behind the relatively limited role played by CSOs for refugees and asylum seekers in labour market integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An exceptional chain of events in science, technology, art and planning took place in Latin America in the 1970s. Does this wonder shed light upon our view of the basic roots of cultural, social and political blooming? This paper intends to adduce evidence on second-order cybernetics processes underlying five outstanding cases in real societies and to disclose the links between democracy and unfettering momentum for freedom and creativity. Namely, Oscar Varsavsky, national projects, styles of development, scientific and technological autonomy; Stefano Varese, cultural and political autonomy of indigenous people; Mario Pedrosa, creation of the Museum of Solidarity in Chile; Stafford Beer, Cybersyn project for cybernetics and self-management in Chile; and Humberto Maturana, concepts of autopoiesis, cognition, language and multiverse. The reasoning counts with the author's direct participation in all cases. The paper sets a similarity worthy of being noticed between Allende's Unidad Popular in Chile and Pericles' Golden Age in Greece and outlines why these historic realms albeit far apart have lasting importance and similar historical impetus. Highlights the essential and seminal features of each stream and comes to the conclusion that effective democracy is the necessary condition for participation and creativity. Upsurges in social participation and creativity are neither frequent nor cyclical. Still, such sudden and usually large increase in ingenuity, flair and aim to improve living conditions, although limited in time, remain in our mind as a joy forever. Nowadays, the world witnesses a contrary motion towards sterile art patterns and restrained behaviour. Hence, it becomes even more important to better understand the basic roots of cultural, social and political blooming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The conservation of energy and momentum have been viewed as undermining Cartesian mental causation since the 1690s. Modern discussions of the topic tend to use mid-nineteenth century physics, neglecting both locality and Noether's theorem and its converse. The relevance of General Relativity (GR) has rarely been considered. But a few authors have proposed that the non-localizability of gravitational energy and consequent lack of physically meaningful local conservation laws answers the conservation objection to mental causation: conservation already fails in GR, so there is nothing for minds to violate. This paper is motivated by two ideas. First, one might take seriously the fact that GR formally has an infinity of rigid symmetries of the action and hence, by Noether's first theorem, an infinity of conserved energies-momenta (thus answering Schrödinger's 1918 false-negative objection). Second, Sean Carroll has asked (rhetorically) how one should modify the Dirac–Maxwell–Einstein equations to describe mental causation. This paper uses the generalized Bianchi identities to show that General Relativity tends to exclude, not facilitate, such Cartesian mental causation. In the simplest case, Cartesian mental influence must be spatio-temporally constant, and hence 0. The difficulty may diminish for more complicated models. Its persuasiveness is also affected by larger world-view considerations. The new general relativistic objection provides some support for realism about gravitational energy-momentum in GR (taking pseudotensor laws seriously). Such realism also might help to answer an objection to theories of causation involving conserved quantities, because energies-momenta would be conserved even in GR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the relative efficiency of the forest sector of 28 EU/EFTA countries during the period 2010–2015 is assessed using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). Three non-discretionary inputs (persons employed, forest available for wood supply and initial growing stock) are considered. The outputs are roundwood production, gross value added and final growing stock. The proposed DEA model not only computes efficiency scores but also improvement targets. The countries with the lowest efficiency scores during the period under study are Greece, Bulgaria and Italy. In the second stage, a fractional regression model is fitted and the factors that have an influence on the estimated efficiency are identified. The factors that have an influence are GDP and belonging to the NORTH Europe and CENTRAL-WEST Europe regions. Quantitative estimates of the partial effects of these factors are provided. The results can contribute in providing guidance towards the best practice in roundwood production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the short-term employment impact of the COVID-19 lockdown in Greece during the first few months following the pandemic onset. During the initial lockdown period, aggregate employment was lower by almost 9 percentage points than it would have been expected based on pre-pandemic employment trends. However, due to a government intervention that prohibited layoffs, this was not due to higher separation rates. The overall short-term employment impact was due to lower hiring rates. To uncover the mechanism behind this, we use a difference-in-differences framework, and show that tourism-related activities, which are exposed to seasonal variation, had significantly lower employment entry rates in the months following the pandemic onset compared to non-tourism activities. Our results highlight the relevance of the timing of unanticipated shocks in economies with strong seasonal patterns, and the relative effectiveness of policy interventions to partly absorb the consequences of such shocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study analyses the relations and processes underpinning grand corruption in the health sector in Greece. Viewed from a systemic-structural perspective, corruption is examined as a phenomenon emerging from the interactions and interconnections between the organized structures of venture capital and the state apparatus. Applying an integrated theoretical model of state-corporate crime and drawing on extensive empirical qualitative research, this paper traces the processes of normalization and institutionalization of corruption within the context of social networks and organizations. It is argued that corruption is not a deviant response to a normal system but a normal response to a system fostering illicit practice in accordance with capitalist ethos, profiteering, and the distribution of economic resources. In this wide political economy context, existing power relations and structures within the health sector are being reproduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When healthcare interventions prolong life, people consume medical and non-medical goods during the years of life they gain. It has been argued that the costs for medical consumption should be included in cost-effectiveness analyses from both a healthcare and societal perspective, and the costs for non-medical consumption should additionally be included when a societal perspective is applied. Standardized estimates of these so-called future costs are available in only a few countries and the impact of inclusion of these costs is likely to differ between countries. In this paper we present and compare future costs for five European countries and estimate the impact of including these costs on the cost-effectiveness of life-prolonging interventions. As countries differ in the availability of data, we illustrate how both individual- and aggregate-level data sources can be used to construct standardized estimates of future costs. Results show a large variation in costs between countries. The medical costs for the Netherlands, Germany, and the United Kingdom are large compared to Spain and Greece. Non-medical costs are higher in Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom than in Greece. The impact of including future costs on the ICER similarly varied between countries, ranging from €1000 to €35,000 per QALY gained. The variation between countries in impact on the ICER is largest when considering medical costs and indicate differences in both structure and level of healthcare financing in these countries. Case study analyses were performed in which we highlight the large impact of including future costs on ICER relative to willingness-to-pay thresholds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Greece is a country structured by land, several islands and sea. A regional gravity model of such a country demands the involvement of several types of gravity data in order to cover all its territory. In this paper, we present the development of a regional combined gravity model of Greece and its surrounding area, by integrating terrestrial, marine (shipborne and altimetry-derived gravity data) and satellite data (GOCE and GRACE data). These kinds of data, especially the terrestrial and marine ones, have passed quality and validation control since they were collected from different organizations, which means that they probably have been acquired and processed with different parameters and formulas. Following that, their integration was accomplished with the application of the least-squares collocation (LSC). Therefore, a newly combined regional gravity model of Greece and its surrounding areas has been developed. This gravity model can be valuable for regional geological and geophysical studies of Greece, since it provides homogeneously the distribution of Complete Bouguer anomaly (CBA) all over Greece, with updated gravity data and in good agreement with the initial gravity datasets that have been used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water markets are considered an effective groundwater management instrument. However, the emergence of market power during their operation, i.e., price manipulation, cannot be excluded. In this paper, a simple water market between two groups of farmers is modeled and an attempt is made firstly to quantify the loss of aggregate total benefits during a given planning period from the occurrence of market power in this market using a "structural model" to describe the market conditions and solving an optimal control problem and secondly to determine the initial allocation of water rights that limits the loss of benefits due to market power. The results of simulations based on hydro-economic data of a region in Northern Greece lead to two conclusions. The first conclusion is that the loss of aggregate total benefit is likely to reach even 10 % compared to perfect competition when there is a full monopoly or monopsony in the water market. The second conclusion is that an initial allocation close to the quantities consumed by each group under perfect competition leads to a limitation of the impact of market power on the aggregate total benefit gained by the two groups of farmers during the planning period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The response of a two-storey RC school building in the town of Argostoli, Cephalonia Island, Greece, during the seismic sequence of January and February 2014, is examined. The structure was built following an older generation of seismic codes dating from the 1950s, which provide limited strength and ductility against lateral loads. Despite the severity of ground shaking and the two successive events, the building suffered relatively minor damage, like most of the RC buildings in the town. Following a short presentation of some basic seismological, structural and geotechnical aspects of the seismic sequence, the paper focuses on the seismic performance of the structure at hand. To this end, a series of detailed non-linear static and time-history dynamic analyses are reported, which highlight the interplay of soil, foundation and superstructure in modifying the seismic demand. It is demonstrated that SSI had an unexpectedly important (detrimental) role in the behaviour of the structure, increasing its natural period by about 25% and aggravating ductility demand in almost all columns, despite the moderately soft soil conditions (average VS = 180 m/s). The results shed light on the seismic performance of the building and help drawing conclusions on the engineering effects of the 2014 Cephalonia earthquake sequence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Infrastructures are critical for the functioning of society. Due to globalization, damages between different components of infrastructure systems can cross international boundaries, resulting in broad economic and social impacts. Hence, it is fundamental to develop powerful tools for the assessment of infrastructure risk, considering a wide spectrum of uncertainties. Past studies covering infrastructure risk assessment are limited to a few countries, partly because for assessing the infrastructure risk, issues due to the complexity of the systems, like paucity and heterogeneity of the data and methods, the consideration of dependencies between components and systems, modeling of ground shaking in terms of scenario and probabilistic approach, taking into account site effects, spatial variability and cross correlation of ground motion at the urban scale, as well as consideration of risk metrics tailored to infrastructure, still remain partially or not properly answered. Moreover, the presently available infrastructure risk assessment tools are not sufficiently illustrative, user-friendly, and comprehensive to meet actual needs. To this end, the paper making an overview of these issues proposes a comprehensive approach that leverages the main strength of existing infrastructure risk methodologies, integrating them into a powerful open-source tool and providing common platform from hazard to risk analysis that will serve for global and easy usage. The methodology and its implementation are illustrated through a test-bed study of the water supply network of the city of Thessaloniki in Greece, considering an Mw 6.5 scenario of the 1978 Thessaloniki earthquake and an event based probabilistic approach and, simultaneously evaluating the sensitivity of cross spatial correlation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to investigate knowledge, principles, and practices concerning the management of children with febrile seizures among pediatricians in Greece. A cross-sectional study was performed across Greece. Pediatricians completed an anonymous and voluntary 11-item questionnaire about their knowledge, attitudes, and practices with respect to the management of febrile seizures; the survey also collected demographic data. It was first administered in paper form in October 2017. This was followed by an online survey performed between June and August of 2018 and publicized by medical boards across Greece. Descriptive statistics and comparisons between groups were conducted with the significance level set at p ≤ 0.05. We recorded 457 responses. Pediatricians admitted to modifying their advice to the parents of children with febrile seizures by suggesting more "aggressive" fever management at low temperatures or systematically (63%), referral to a specialist after any episode of febrile seizures (63%), or hospitalization in a subsequent episode (67%), even though 72% admitted these practices were of no efficacy. Almost one in three pediatricians (28%) believed aggressive management of fever could delay the onset of febrile seizures; increasing age was associated with this perception. A minority (28%) would make parents aware of febrile seizures before a first episode regardless of family history; 38% would do so in the event of family history. Conclusions: Several pediatricians in Greece use outdated and ineffective practices for the management of febrile seizures, despite the availability of updated evidence-based guidelines. Further training of practitioners is needed to bridge this gap. What is Known: •Aggressive management of fever at low temperatures with antipyretics, referral to a neurologist, and hospitalization are not supported by evidence or recent guidelines on childhood febrile seizures. •Febrile seizures are especially disturbing to uninformed parents, who may be inclined to pursue aggressive but ineffective treatments as a result. What is New: •Pediatricians in Greece use non-evidence-based practices for the management of febrile seizures, even when they are aware that these practices are not effective. •Older age increases the likelihood that a pediatrician will pursue guideline non-compliant practices in Greece. At the same time, physicians with over 20 years of experience are more likely to inform parents in advance about febrile seizures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The considerable relevant size of the tourism sector for some economies, together with this sector's vulnerability to CC, renders this study an insightful aid to tourism demand forecasting. The paper applies a pooled mean group (PMG) model to identify climate parameters that affect tourism demand. Then, it continues with an input–output table analysis to show the transmission effects of CC on each component of the tourism sector. The PMG model imposes homogeneity on the long-run coefficients and while less restrictive, it is more efficient than other methods of the same family. The estimated gravity equation enables comparisons of the baseline scenario with various different scenarios of CC and finds how tourist arrivals could be affected up to 2080. Our results suggest that there is mostly a positive relationship of the squared difference of temperature and precipitation between Greece and tourist origin countries. Our findings also suggest that CC could lead to a fall in Greek GDP between 1.79 and 2.61%. We believe that our findings will help design appropriate policy actions that may offset or alleviate these negative future negative impacts of CC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amidst concerns about the effectiveness of the EU Structural Funds and discoveries of their unintended effects, could it be that they also undermine trust in politicians in the recipient regions? To find out, this paper estimates regression discontinuities at the two per-capita GDP thresholds, which determine regions' eligibility for the convergence objective and phasing-out transitional support. Data used for estimation pertain to the NUTS 2 regions of the EU-15 Member States and the 2007–2013 programming period. Receipt of the EU Structural Funds leaves the share of citizens expressing trust in politicians unaffected but increases the share of those expressing distrust. In the phasing-out regions, this increase amounts to eight percentage points on average. The causal distrust-increasing effect of EU resources is driven by the regions of Greece, which experienced severe economic turmoil during the period under investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to assess whether internal devaluation is a sufficient measure to improve industrial exports competitiveness. Focusing on the cases of Greece and Portugal, two small open economies, which have recently experienced major corrective policies in the context of Memoranda of Understanding, we aim at explaining the differences observed regarding the growth of industrial exports in the two countries during the period 2000 to date. Our findings point to a number of cost items other than the unit labor cost that have increased the prices of specific categories of goods exports. Over and above that, however, the higher growth of Portuguese manufacturing exports relative to those of Greece may be explained by a variety of structural weaknesses of the Greek economy leading to its inability to retain international market shares and imposing constraints on the domestic industrial base. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Macroeconomic changes such as economic depression and stock market crashes can have an impact on private life, mood and attitudes toward individuals and, by this, on the macroeconomy. This paper deals with the mental health indicators depression and grief as a result of economic and financial crises. For this purpose, it refers to the seminal five phases of crisis response well known from psychology and applies them to the setting of Greece since the start of the most recent crisis. In this context, we differentiate between investors and the "normal" population and deal with important feedback effects from lower mental health to the macroeconomy. Finally, as these feedback effects tend to lead even deeper into macroeconomic trouble, a vicious cycle cannot be excluded given these findings. The paper also generalizes its considerations to the case of mental health effects of economic crises beyond the Greek case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Greek National Annex for current Eurocode 8 has adopted the seismic hazard zonation map published in 2003 as part of the modifications to the Greek Seismic Code EAK 2000 (EAK 2003). This map, which followed the catastrophic earthquakes that hit the country between 1978 and 2001, includes three seismic hazard zones with peak ground acceleration (PGA) ranging between 0.16 and 0.36 g. In this paper, following the significant progress that has been made worldwide in the last two decades towards the improvement of the definition of seismic actions and the seismic hazard maps using fully probabilistic models, we make a complete proposal for the Greek National Annex of the ongoing revision of Eurocode 8, which includes a new seismic hazard zonation map for Greece, as well as a novel site categorization scheme and related site amplification factors. To this end, we use the results of the European Seismic Hazard Model, ESHM20, as reported by Danciu et al. (The 2020 update of the European Seismic Hazard Model: Model Overview, 2021) which will be adopted as informative reference for the seismic hazard at European level in the forthcoming revision of Eurocode 8 (CEN/EC8). The herein proposed ground shaking zonation for rock conditions includes five zones with PGA values ranging between 0.13 and 0.37 g. For each zone, two newly proposed ground motion parameters, i.e., Sα,475 and Sβ,475, are provided, which are the two parameters used for anchoring the elastic response spectrum as defined in CEN/EC8, along with all the other necessary parameters for the definition of the elastic response spectrum, including site amplification. The proposal for the new seismic zonation is supported by a preliminary investigation of the impact of its adoption on the seismic design of new structures and on the seismic risk of the current building stock in Greece, to help gain a better insight on how important the differences imposed by the new zonation might be for the end-users and the administration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resilience has become a crucial concept in understanding the ability of complex systems to withstand shocks and adapt to future challenges. This concept has recently gained much attention in various disciplines, including geography and regional science. For example, the European Union has recognized the importance of resilience-based policies in the face of crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic. This study focuses on core-periphery disparities within European regions and aims to examine the impact of economic peripherality on regional resilience. Economic peripheries often face challenges such as adverse sectoral structures, low activity rates, and lower levels of innovation, making them more vulnerable to various shocks. The main hypothesis is that peripherality increases vulnerabilities and is correlated with lower resilience. Nevertheless, peripheral regions are more motivated to enhance resilience compared to regions already considered resilient. We argue that these peripheries need to renew existing structures or create new paths to enhance their resilience. However, historical and path dependency factors make it difficult to bring about such changes in a timely manner. The study explores different conceptual and methodological approaches to core-periphery models and emphasizes the importance of assessing socio-economic disparities from a spatial resilience perspective. Various factors, including trade integration, GDP, industrialization, human capital, and institutional efficiency, appear to contribute to core-periphery differentiation. Moreover, the paper highlights the long-run impact of the recent 2007–2012 economic crisis on peripheral regions, particularly in Southern areas of Greece, Italy, and Spain. To understand the spatial patterns of resilience comprehensively, the study presents a range of European multidimensional resilience maps, including consistent spatial indicators, building on previous resilience atlases that illustrated resilience at various territorial levels. These maps provide evidence-based insights into regional resilience performance and capacity in European regions, facilitating a better understanding of their potential to bounce back from major shocks and disruptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Optimal groundwater management is a necessary condition for achieving the objective of sustainable development, which is directly linked to issues of intergenerational equity. Thus, groundwater management policy shaping has to consider such issues, in particular through the implementation of appropriate discounting methods. The existing literature in the field of groundwater management focuses on a single discount function (DF), the exponential one, without considering the impact of different DFs on the results obtained. At the same time, tradable water rights (TWR) systems have been suggested as policy instruments for more efficient and sustainable water use. This paper focuses on the impact that different DFs have on the formulation of groundwater management policies based on TWR. To this end, a dynamic model is formulated, which concerns groundwater pumping from an aquifer by two groups of users participating in a TWR system and four different DFs are considered to calculate the present value of social welfare: no discounting, exponential, hyperbolic and Gamma discounting. The results of simulations based on data for an aquifer in Northern Greece show that there is a high sensitivity of the results to the DF, which has a direct effect on social welfare from groundwater consumption, aquifer's hydrological behavior and TWR system intertemporal economic efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, the improvement of digital learning with Artificial Intelligence has attracted a lot of research, as it provides solutions for individualized education styles which are independent of place and time. This is particularly the case for computer science, as a tutoring domain, which is rapidly growing and changing and as such, learners need frequent update courses. In this paper, we present a thorough evaluation of a fuzzy-based intelligent tutoring system (ITS), that teaches computer programming. The evaluation concerns multiple aspects of the ITS. The evaluation criteria are: (i) context, (ii) effectiveness, (iii) efficiency, (iv) accuracy, (v) usability and satisfaction, and (vi) engagement and motivation. In the evaluation process students of an undergraduate program in Informatics of the University of Piraeus in Greece participated. The evaluation method that was used included questionnaires, analysis of log files and experiments. Also, t-tests were conducted to certify the validity of the evaluation results. Indeed, the evaluation results are very positive and show that the incorporated fuzzy mechanism to the presented ITS enhances the system with Artificial Intelligence and through this, it increases the learners' satisfaction and new knowledge learning and mastering, improves the recommendation accuracy of the system, the efficacy of interactions, and contributes positively to the learners' engagement in the learning process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the critical role of Mega Infrastructure Projects in sustainable urban and peripheral development by presenting a Sustainable Infrastructure Serum Analysis supported by primary field research. In the Athens Metro case study, we examined the project's impact on sustainable development by analysing the opinions of the project's users. As a result, the Athens Metro serves as a case study to help us better understand sustainable infrastructure as a framework for green growth from the standpoint of society. The three pillars of sustainable development are inextricably linked. This study focuses on the social comprehension and acceptance of a Mega Infrastructure Project effects. We attempt to demonstrate the interdependence of the three pillars of sustainable development through public opinion responses to our research by developing a statistical model fed by public responses to a prototype questionnaire that we developed to support our research objectives. The study's findings highlighted the project's social acceptability and necessity by establishing a direct positive correlation between sustainability, society, the economy, and the environment from the standpoint of society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of this paper is to analyze the impact of climate change on water resources management and groundwater quantity and quality in the coastal agricultural Almyros Basin, in Greece. Intensive groundwater abstractions for irrigation and nitrogen fertilization for crop production maximization, have caused a large water deficit, nitrate pollution, as well as seawater intrusion in the Almyros aquifer system. Multi-model climate projections for Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs 4.5 and 8.5) from the Med-CORDEX database for precipitation and temperature have been used to evaluate the impacts of climate change on the study area. The multi-model climate projections have been bias-corrected with Delta, Delta change of Mean and Variance, Quantile Delta Change, Quantile Empirical Mapping, and Quantile Gamma Mapping methods, and statistically tested to find the best GCM/RCM multi-model ensemble. Simulation of coastal water resources has been performed using an Integrated Modelling System (IMS) that contains connected models of surface hydrology (UTHBAL), groundwater hydrology (MODFLOW), nitrate leaching/crop growth (REPIC), nitrate pollution (MT3DMS), and seawater intrusion (SEAWAT). The results indicate that the best climate multi-model ensemble consists of three (3) climate models for both RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 using the Quantile Empirical Mapping bias-correction method. The IMS was applied for historical and future periods with observed and simulated meteorological inputs (e.g. precipitation and temperature) and various irrigation and agronomic scenarios and water storage works development (i.e. reservoirs). The results indicate that at least deficit irrigation and deficit irrigation along with rain-fed cultivation schemes, combined with or without the development and operation of reservoirs, should be applied to overcome the degradation of groundwater quality and quantity in the study basin. Based on the findings of this work, the water resources management should be adaptive to tackle the water resources problems of the Almyros Basin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to study the argumentative basis on which the prevention of migration is justified and hatred politics is institutionalised in three Mediterranean settings, namely Greece, Malta, and Italy, that were at the centre of the so-called 'refugee crisis' in 2015–2017. Following the rubric of corpus-assisted Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA) to Critical Discourse Studies (CDS), we trace (a) the main meaningful patterns, and (b) discursive and argumentation strategies (topoi) in three balanced corpora of mainstream news portals aligned with centre-right and centre-left political views. Among our main findings, the mobilisation of migrant populations is construed as an extremely polarised issue both in national and EU contexts and claims in favour of its prevention are justified on topoi of danger/threat, numbers and burdening/weighing down. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A number of geochemical and epidemiological studies verified that the Lavrion urban and suburban area is highly contaminated and has affected to a variable degree the health of the inhabitants, presented in the first part of review on the Lavrion 'sagas'. In the second part of this review, emphasis is given to the challenge environmental scientists faced in communicating the scientific results to environmental managers and the public and state officials in order for them to understand the benefits of prioritising public health over wealth. Imminent remediation actions have been developed and proposed in order to secure a healthier life for the local population. The proposed integrated environmental management scheme was based on the findings of hazard and health risk assessment. The aim was not only to remediate the contaminated land, but also to inform the local population and authorities regarding the environmental hazards that they were facing, and the necessary safety measures that should be taken. However, the proposed lifestyle changes were viewed with scepticism from all stakeholders. This paper seeks to provide some answers to questions related to the obstacles that have prevented the implementation of the proposed remediation plan on a large scale by reporting on risk perception and response to scientific evidence by the affected community in Lavrion. It also underlines the significant role of SEGH in linking applied environmental research with the public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the beginning of 2010, the fiscal situation of Greece was unsustainable, and an ambitious but costly adjustment plan had to be put in place under a consortium of the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank. It took three consecutive adjustment programmes, including debt-relief through private sector involvement, to restore confidence in the economy and achieve a budget surplus. In this paper, we provide a theoretical analysis of the Greek Crisis starting from 2010. We build a series of counterfactuals using the National Institute General Econometric Model (NIGEM) to analyse why the cost of the adjustment in terms of GDP loss and increase in debt-to-GDP ratio turned out to be much worse than expected. In doing so, we analyse three scenarios: (i) one in which we simulate a much more conservative cut in public investment by the Greek central government; (ii) a second scenario of a lower risk-premium, signalling, e.g., lower political and re-denomination risks, had the European Central Bank guaranteed its lending of last resort role earlier than 2012; (iii) finally, a similar financial envelope as the one adopted during the first Greek adjustment programme but over a longer period, moving beyond the standard IMF three-year duration programmes. We find that the mix of expenditure cuts and loss of confidence among households and firms explain a large part of the unanticipated costs of the adjustment in the Greek crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

EU has set ambitious commitment to achieve low carbon energy and economy transition up to 2050. This low carbon transition means sustainable energy development path based on renewable energy sources and first of all should address the energy poverty vulnerability and justice issues. The main goal of the paper is to develop indicators framework for assessing low carbon just energy transition and to apply this framework for analysis how climate change mitigation policies in households targeting enhancement of energy renovation of residential buildings and promotion of the use of micro-generation technologies and other policies are affecting household's energy poverty and vulnerability in selected countries: Lithuania and Greece. This framework allows to assess three main dimensions of sustainable energy development: environmental, social and economic. The paper provides policy recommendations how to deal with just low carbon energy transition which means addressing energy poverty issues during moving to 100% renewables in power generation based on performed case studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the Greek sovereign debt crisis in the aftermath of the 2007-8 global financial crisis looking for barriers to, and engines of, growth. The vehicle is a calibrated medium-scale micro-founded macroeconomic model. Departing from 2008, our simulations show that the adopted economic adjustment program (the fiscal austerity mix combined with the fiscal and monetary assistance provided by the EU, ECB and IMF), jointly with the observed deterioration in institutional quality (the degree of protection of property rights) can explain most (around 22% of GDP) of the cumulative loss in GDP in the data (around 26% of GDP) between 2008 and 2016. In particular, the economic adjustment program can explain a fall of around 12%, while the deterioration in property rights accounts for another 10%. Counterfactual simulations, on the other hand, show that this loss could have been around 9% only, if the country had followed a different fiscal policy mix; if the degree of product marker liberalization was closer to that in the core euro zone countries; and, above all, if institutional quality in Greece had simply remained at its pre-crisis level. On the other hand, in the absence of the official fiscal bailouts, the depression would be much deeper, while, the accommodative role played by the quantitative policies of the ECB has been vital to the Greek economy. These results can be useful in the face of the ongoing covid-19 crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The daily commuting out of the city of residence for labor purposes is a complex phenomenon driven by various geographical, transportation, economic, and social forces. Due to its high level of complexity, current modeling approaches are mainly disciplinary and thus lack a multifaceted approach incorporating diverse conceptualization of this phenomenon. To contribute to this demand, this paper develops a methodological framework integrating aspects of commuting of different contexts, functionality, and level of geographical resolution. The proposed framework builds on a complex network and principal component analysis first to develop a multilayer graph of interregional commuting, next to configure variables representing aspects of network topology, and finally to decompose the total model into principal components expressing uncorrelated aspects in the overall conceptualization of interregional commuting. The proposed framework conceptualizes spatial distance as a major force of network topology and develops a quantitative framework evaluating the consistency of network topology across layers of different geographical resolutions and functionality. The overall approach provides insights into the structure and functionality of interregional commuting and promotes the integrated macroeconomic approach in regional research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper empirically studies public debt sustainability with the penalized panel splines approach for 25 EU economies from 2000 to 2019 by estimating the response of the primary surplus to lagged debt relative to GDP, respectively. A positive coefficient on average indicates sustainable policies, which is supported by all our results. Moreover, we show that this relationship is not homogeneous across the distribution of the debt ratios but varies with the magnitude of public debt to GDP. The estimations reveal a strongly increasing reaction for small and high debt ratios while it is rather flat for intermediate levels. This holds for normal times, too, whereas during years of economic crisis a monotonously increasing response can be observed. Additionally, for a cluster consisting of smaller EU economies, there is an indication of 'fiscal fatigue', meaning that the effort of active fiscal counter-steering peters out for high ratios of public debt to GDP. The same effect can be observed for the whole sample and a sample including the large EU economies, once Greece is removed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is widely known that both geography and institutions determine the location of an investment. However, little is known about the impact of these factors on entrepreneurs' future business plans. Using a questionnaire survey, this paper examines whether the 'first-' and 'second-nature' geography and institutions affect the plans of entrepreneurs to expand or sell their businesses in Greece. The analysis shows that entrepreneurs intend to expand their businesses when the importance of the country's relative geographical location to the international market increases, but that of localisation economies decreases. There is also evidence that entrepreneurs aim to sell their businesses to domestic investors when sea access, the natural environment, the agglomeration economies, the location of Greece and the local governance are ideal for the business performance in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper provides fresh empirical evidence on the tourism-growth relationship for Greece over the period 1977Q1-2020Q2. We find that the long-run relationship between tourism and output is positive and is characterized by a substantially faster adjustment of output after a negative shock than after a positive one. Using asymmetric error-correction model analysis the results show that the short-term adjustment path occurs through the level of output for negative deviations from the long-run equilibrium, thus supporting the tourism-led growth hypothesis. Linear quantile regression (QR) analysis indicates that the impact of tourism remains positive across the output distribution, but the effect is more pronounced at the lower quantiles of output while at the higher quantiles of output it becomes weaker and statistically insignificant. Furthermore, applying asymmetric QR analysis there is evidence that tourism growth exhibits an asymmetric impact on output growth. Our results have important policy implications, since the tourism-led growth hypothesis is a useful policy recommendation, but it should not be considered a panacea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]