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Climatic changes may cause temperature rise and thus increase the risk of forest fire. Because of the forest fire, in Greece only during the summer of 2007-2009, 71 people died and about 200,000 ha of forest and many homes burned. In Greece, the forests with the greatest exposure to fire risk are usually those located near the residential and touristic areas where there are major pressures on land use changes. In these areas, the deliberate actions causing forest fires exceed a percentage of 50%. Terrestrial fire protection zones have been set, based on the technical capabilities of the Greek fire-fighting brigades for the study area. Special plastic fire-hoses are used, adapted to the fire-fighting brigades; they are connected in pieces of 30-50 meters up to a total length of 300 meters uphill and 500 meters downhill. The protection coverage was calculated and the study area was divided into not protected, protected and multiple protected areas. For the mechanization of the harvesting system in Greece the ecological and social issues are taken into account. The proposed opening up model for the research area is given. The proposed model is compatible with the environment and its importance is even greater when we operate in burned areas where the erosion hazards are increased and the preservation of forest soils is the most critical factor for the future reforestation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies the seismic performance of arocking-isolatedbridge pier on surface foundation, resting on sand. A series of reduced-scale shaking table tests are conducted, comparing the performance of a rocking-isolated system to a pier founded onconventionally designed foundation. The two design alternatives are subjected to a variety of shaking events, comprising real records and artificial motions of varying intensity. In an effort to explore system performance in successive seismic events, three different shaking sequences are performed.Rocking isolationis proven quite effective in reducing the inertia forces transmitted onto the superstructure. The rocking-isolated pier is effectively protected, surviving all seismic excitations without structural damage, at the cost of increased foundation settlement. In contrast, a certain degree of structural damage would be unavoidable for the same system founded on a conventionally designed foundation. The rocking-isolated system is proven remarkably resistant to cumulative cyclic loading, exhibiting limited strength degradation even when subjected to cyclic drift ratio in excess of 5.5%. Due to soil densification, the rate of settlement accumulation is found to decrease with repeating seismic excitations. The rotational response is practically insensitive to the shaking history when the preceding seismic motions aresymmetric(such as sinusoidal motions). In stark contrast, when the preceding seismic motions arenon-symmetric(such as the directivity-affected records of this study), the system tends to accumulate rotation after each event, progressively worsening its performance. Nevertheless, the rocking-isolated system survives toppling collapse, even when subjected to a highly improbable, unrealistically harsh, sequence of seismic events. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Comprehensive field studies revealed distinct differences in soil structural changes and trees damages by quality and extent, depending on traffic of wheeled or tracked machines. Tracks are more soil protective on slopes than on flat terrain, although their \"compaction\" level is somewhat lower than for wheels alone. In this paper the results of researches concerning the damages that were made to the remaining trees located near the skidding tracks, regarding the damages made to the soil and to the litter and also with regard to the total surface of the stands affected by skidding operations are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lung cancer continues to be one of the leading causes of cancer-related death worldwide. There is evidence of a complex interplay between lung cancer and interstitial lung disease (ILD), affecting disease progression, management strategies, and patient outcomes. Both conditions develop as the result of common risk factors such as smoking, environmental exposures, and genetic predispositions. The presence of ILD poses diagnostic and therapeutic challenges in lung cancer management, including difficulties in interpreting radiological findings and increased susceptibility to treatment-related toxicities, such as acute exacerbation of ILD after surgery and pneumonitis after radiation therapy and immunotherapy. Moreover, due to the lack of large, phase III randomized controlled trials, the evidence-based therapeutic options for patients with ILDs and lung cancer remain limited. Antifibrotic treatment may help prevent pulmonary toxicity due to lung cancer treatment, but its effect is still unclear. Emerging diagnostic modalities and biomarkers and optimizing personalized treatment strategies are essential to improve outcomes in this patient population.

Introduction: Fitness trackers can provide continuous monitoring of vital signs and thus have the potential to become a complementary, mobile and effective tool for early detection of patient deterioration and post-operative complications., Methods: To evaluate potential implementations in acute care setting, we included 36 patients after moderate to major surgery in a recent randomised pilot trial to compare the performance of vital sign monitoring by three different fitness trackers (Apple Watch 7, Garmin Fenix 6pro and Withings ScanWatch) with established standard clinical monitors in post-anaesthesia care units and monitoring wards., Results: During a cumulative period of 56 days, a total of 53,197 heart rate (HR) measurements, as well as 12,219 measurements of the peripheral blood oxygen saturation (SpO 2 ) and 28,954 respiratory rate (RR) measurements were collected by fitness trackers. Under real-world conditions, HR monitoring was accurate and reliable across all benchmarked devices (r = [0.95;0.98], p  < 0.001; Bias = [-0.74 bpm;-0.01 bpm]; MAPE∼2%). However, the performance of SpO 2 (r = [0.21;0.68]; p  < 0.001; Bias = [-0.46%;-2.29%]; root-mean-square error = [2.82%;4.1%]) monitoring was substantially inferior. RR measurements could not be obtained for two of the devices, therefore exclusively the accuracy of the Garmin tracker could be evaluated (r = 0.28, p  < 0.001; Bias = -1.46/min). Moreover, the time resolution of the vital sign measurements highly depends on the tracking device, ranging from 0.7 to 117.94 data points per hour., Conclusion: According to the results of the present study, tracker devices are generally reliable and accurate for HR monitoring, whereas SpO 2 and RR measurements should be interpreted carefully, considering the clinical context of the respective patients., Competing Interests: The authors declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: SH, KW, RP, VD, AKS, DR, AJ, JB, BEW and MS declare no conflicts of interest. PH received a research award from Vogel-Foundation and is a member of the Clinician Scientist Programme, Wuerzburg. PM received honoraria for scientific lectures from CSL Behring GmbH, Pharmacosmos GmbH and CSL Vifor GmbH. PK received lecturing fees from TEVA, Sintetica, CSL Behring GmbH, Senzyme, Vifor Pharma GmbH, Pharmacosmos and Grünenthal and consulted for TEVA, Milestone Scientific Inc, Sintetica and Amicus Ltd. All mentioned funders and especially the manufacturers of the investigated devices had no role in the design of the study; collection, analyses or interpretation of data; writing of the manuscript or in the decision to publish the results., (© The Author(s) 2024.)

Purpose: Blood loss along with inadequate evacuation after cardiac surgery leads to retained blood syndrome (RBS) in the pleural and/or pericardial cavity. Re-sternotomy is often needed for clot evacuation. Video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) evacuation is a less-invasive procedure. However, sufficient evidence on safety and outcomes is lacking., Methods: Thirty patients who developed hemothorax and/or hemopericardium after cardiac surgery and underwent VATS evacuation between April 2015 and September 2020 were included in this retrospective single-center analysis., Results: The median patient age was 70 (interquartile range: IQR 62-75) years, body mass index (BMI) was 24.7 (IQR 22.8-29) kg/m 2 , time between initial cardiac surgery and VATS was 17 (IQR 11-21) days, 30% of the patients were female, 60% resided in the ICU, and 17% were nicotine users. Coronary artery bypass graft was the most frequent initial cardiac procedure. Median operation time was 120 (IQR 90-143) min, 23% of the patients needed an additional VATS, and the median length of hospital stay after VATS was 8 (IQR 5-14) days. All patients survived VATS, and we experienced no mortality related to the VATS procedure., Conclusion: In our study, VATS for evacuation of RBS after cardiac surgery was a feasible, safe, and efficient alternative approach to re-sternotomy in selected patients.

Noninvasive measurements of blood pressure (BP) and cardiac output (CO) are crucial in the follow-up of continuous-flow left ventricular assist device (CF-LVAD) patients. For our pilot study, we sought to compare BP measurements between a tonometry blood pressure pulse analyzer (BPPA) (DMP-Life, DAEYOMEDI Co., Ltd., Gyeonggi-do, South Korea) and Doppler ultrasound in CF-LVAD patients, as well as to compare the BPPA estimated CO to LVAD calculated blood flow and to the patient's intrinsic CO estimated with transthoracic echocardiography (TTE). Ambulatory CF-LVAD patients (6 HeartMate, 26 HeartMate II), were included. According to TTE findings, patients were then subdivided in two groups: patients with an opening aortic valve (OAV) [n = 21] and those with an intermittent opening aortic valve (IOAV) [n = 11]. We found a very good correlation of systolic BP (SBP) measurements between the two methods, BPPA and Doppler ultrasound (r = 0.87, P < 0.0001). Bland-Altman plots for SBP revealed a low bias of -4.6 mm Hg and SD of ±4.7 mm Hg. In CF-LVAD patients with IOAV, the BPPA-CO had a good correlation with the LVAD-flow (r = 0.78, P < 0.0001), but in OAV patients, there was no correlation. After adding the patient's intrinsic CO, estimated from TTE in patients with OAV to the LVAD-flow, we found a very good correlation between the BPPA-CO and LVAD-flow + TTE-CO (r = 0.81, P = 0.002). Our study demonstrated that compared with the standard clinical method, Doppler ultrasound, the BPPA measured BP noninvasively with good accuracy and precision of agreement. In addition, tonometry BPPA provided further valuable information regarding the CF-LVAD patient's intrinsic CO., (© 2018 International Center for Artificial Organs and Transplantation and Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)