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Liquid biopsy is a promising tool for a better cancer management and currently opens perspectives for several clinical applications, such as detection of mutations when the analysis from tissue is not available, monitoring tumor mutational burden and prediction of targeted therapy response. These characteristics validate liquid biopsy analysis as a strong cancer biomarkers source with high potential for improving cancer patient's evolution. Compared to classical biopsy, liquid biopsy is a minimal invasive procedure, and it allows the real-time monitoring of treatment response. Considering that lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer-associated death worldwide and that only 15-19% of the lung cancer patients survive five years after diagnosis, there is an important interest in improving its management. Like in other types of solid cancers, lung cancer could benefit from liquid biopsy through a simple peripheral blood sample as tumor-related biomarkers, such as circulating tumor cells (CTCs), cell-free nucleic acids (cfNA) [cell-free ribonucleic acid (cfRNA) and cell-free deoxyribonucleic acid (cfDNA)], exosomes and tumor-educated platelets (TEPs) may shed into circulation because of necrosis or in an active manner. More, the detection and analysis of these biomarkers could lead to a better understanding of oncological diseases like lung cancer. The better the tumor profile is established; the better management is possible. However, this approach has currently some limitations, such as low cfNA concentration or low count of CTCs that might be overcome by improving the actual methods and technologies.

Over the recent years, online communication and collaboration applications have been extensively used in teaching, learning, and research. The aim of the present study is to evaluate the attitudes and perceptions of higher education students concerning these applications and their use in learning activities. The research was conducted on 748 Romanian students. The findings have revealed that social networks represent the main category of communication and collaboration applications used for learning purposes. Additionally, gender-induced differences have been found, as well as variances among undergraduates and graduates by several dimensions of the unified technology acceptance model, while students' learning engagement proved to mediate the relationship between personality traits, technology self-efficacy, and the use of collaboration tools. The paper also offers a comparative analysis between the students' and the academics' responses to the use of online communication and collaboration applications in the same cultural and organizational context. Practical implications are also presented.

The present paper aims at providing an insight into the benefits that content and language integrated learning (CLIL) can bring to the teaching of business English in higher education, given the place of the English language in the European Union and the competitive advantages it offers on the international labour market. The first part of the paper puts emphasis on some historical facts related to CLIL, presents the EU position with respect to this teaching approach and introduces its characteristics. The second part shows how, in the absence of the dual-focus CLIL, this methodology can be adapted and successfully integrated in business English classes, by applying the four elements of the CLIL conceptual framework: content, communication, culture and cognition.

Lung cancer ranks second worldwide after breast cancer and third in Europe after breast and colorectal cancers when both sexes and all ages are considered. In this context, the aim of this study was to emphasize the power of dual analysis of the molecular profile both in tumor tissue and plasma by NGS assay as a liquid biopsy approach with impact on prognosis and therapy modulation in NSCLC patients. NGS analysis was performed both from tissue biopsies and from cfNAs isolated from peripheral blood samples. Out of all 29 different mutations detectable by both NGS panels (plasma and tumor tissue), seven different variants (24.13%; EGFR L858R in two patients, KRAS G13D and Q61H and TP53 G244D, V197M, R213P, and R273H) were detected only in plasma and not in the tumor itself. These mutations were detected in seven different patients, two of them having known distant organ metastasis. Our data show that NGS analysis of cfDNA could identify actionable mutations in advanced NSCLC and, therefore, this analysis could be used to monitor the disease progression and the treatment response and even to modulate the therapy in real time.

The purpose of the present paper is to offer an overview of the language policies proposed by the Council of Europe and the European Commission and implemented at European level over the last decades. In this context, reference is going to be made to the language competences that students are expected to have at the end of the cycles of education, with emphasis on higher education, as well as to teaching methods which have proven to be particularly efficient as regards languages for specific purposes.

This paper analyzes the dynamics of trade at EU level, using panel data for the 28 Member States (MS). The relationship between GDP, population level, imports and exports for the period 2010-2017 is analyzed. Afterwords we move to a particular case, namely the United Kingdom using data series for the period 2008 - 2017 and the same variables as above. In this case, the relationship between GDP, exports and population level will be analyzed.In both cases, the data source is Eurostat.

Language has been considered proof of human exceptionalism in the Western European culture since the Enlightenment era. As a result, a rigid hierarchy placing human on the top emerged. Due to human’s capacity to rationalize thought and materialize it using language as a tool, it entitled itself to possess and dispose of anything deemed as less- or non-human. Once the fixed idea of language is destabilized, its accuracy as a tool fit enough to represent the world and human thought comes into question. Once language, a pillar of Humanism, is damaged, the collapse of human exceptionalism is imminent. Post-humanism and ontological pluralism are offering the grounds for exploring a paradigm without the hierarchy. A flattened reality in which the relationships between ways of being are far more complex than mere hierarchies, food chains, or concentric circles. They are entangled, mangled. They are plugging-in and unplugging in an assemblage. For inquiring into an assemblage, tools such as qualitative methodologies, representational logic and data become useless. Meanwhile, post-qualitative inquiries do not pretend to ascend the ultimate, pure knowledge or truth but simply offer a brief, incomplete glimpse into the assemblage. The results of such destabilizations consist of more care and attention being offered to negotiating language and languaging, empty spaces and howls, communication outside the higher senses of sight and hearing. In education, it translates into alternative teachers and teachings. The learners are entangled into an assemblage with which they are inter-acting by forming relationships. They are learning to co-live with rather than to make sense of the ways of being.

We live in a time period when technology is advancing at an incredible speed. What seemed to be almost science fiction twenty years ago nowadays is becoming or has already become reality. As a result, our activities (especially the activities of young people) have started to shift more and more towards the digital world. If our parents used to read books in order to spend their free time when they were in their 20s, nowadays young people prefer in their free time to play a mobile game rather than to read a book. Even though they know reading books can be more useful and even more entertaining than a mobile phone game, people tend to choose the smartphone activity because of the easiness of reaching the desired action. This paper presents the current status of the LibQuest prototype, an application part of Lib2Life research project, that enables the possibility to combine reading with fun and technology, aiming to remind people how important and fun reading can be. Inside virtual libraries, which reproduce real life libraries, people can solve quests (such as RPG quests), can take part in virtual tours or can participate to custom cultural events. All these actions (whether we talk about quests, tours or cultural events) can be created by an admin of the library or can be also created by users of the application. Tours and cultural events can take place only in the virtual world, while quests, in order to be more exciting, can take place in both the virtual world and the real world.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the online learning of foreign languages at higher education level has represented a way to adapt to the restrictions imposed worldwide. The aim of the present article is to analyse university students&rsquo, behaviours, emotions and perceptions associated to online foreign language learning during the pandemic and their correlates by using a mixed approach. The research used the Foreign Language Enjoyment (FLE) scale and tools developed by the authors, focusing on task value, self-perceived foreign language proficiency, stressors and responses in online foreign language learning during the pandemic. Some of the results, such as the negative association between anxiety and FLE, are consistent with those revealed in studies conducted in normal times. Other results are novel, such as the protective role of retrospective enjoyment in trying times or the higher level of enjoyment with lower-achieving students. Reference is made to students&rsquo, preferences for certain online resources during the pandemic (e.g., preference for PowerPoint presentations) and to their opinions regarding the use of entirely or partially online foreign language teaching in the post-COVID period. The quantitative results are fostered by the respondents&rsquo, voices in the qualitative research. The consequences of these results are discussed with respect to the teacher-student relationship in the online environment and to the implications for sustainable online foreign language learning.

Augmented reality has become a very powerful tool nowadays. With the recent technological advance, smartphones have the ability to display augmented content on the screen. What makes the difference is the naturalness with which the multimedia content is superimposed over the video stream acquired with the phone's camera. This perfect overlay depends on the accurate estimation of the position and orientation of the smartphone's camera relative to the 3D representation of the space. ARCore is an augmented reality framework that computes the position and orientation of the smartphone. In order to assess the possibility of integrating ARCore within a virtual and augmented reality platform, we evaluated the accuracy of the ARCore localization technology, using the HTC Vive system as a reference. We designed an evaluation methodology, along with visualization tools that enable a thorough comparison between these two technologies.

The ever increasing advancement of technology, the availability of information, and other internet-related activities such as online communication have shifted the interest of people, leaving cultural or social aspects such as reading a book or visiting a museum on a second plan. Gamification is a well-known method which makes education and culture more attractive and interesting to people in the modern age, especially young generations. This paper describes the implementation of LibQuest, a platform which combines culture with technology and games. It is a part of the Lib2Life research project with the aim of revitalizing libraries and other cultural spaces using mixed reality applications. LibQuest proposes to use a gamified quest system in order to encourage people, especially youngsters to access libraries and read more. Each quest is structured with multiple checkpoints in mixed reality, requiring the user to use and navigate both in virtual reality and real-world places in order to gain rewards or find interesting things. Each checkpoint has a validation method, ranging from simple quizzes, to finding clues, visiting specific targets (museums, squares etc.), code scanning, taking pictures or recording audio. The article will present the development of an initial prototype, the current status of the solution and users' feedback. Chapters cover implementation details, used technologies, challenges, encountered problems and difficulties in the process of building and developing, as well as practical results. The conception of a survey integrated in the prototype is also presented with results and analyzed users' feedback. Lastly, conclusions, future development steps and improvements are discussed.

As we roam further into the future, digitization becomes an essential tool in thinning the barrier between the physical and cyber worlds. We grow expectations of bringing more and more of the world at our fingertips, and eventually being able to access data or experiences by the means of easily operable electronic devices. Reviving the libraries use, especially in academic context, by augmenting their spaces through Augmented Reality techniques or mirroring their spaces in Virtual Reality, eases the training of the readers in knowing and using the library, and provides a solid foundation for plenty of new collaborative experiences for readers and visitors. Additionally, the 3D reconstruction of libraries, needed for Virtual Reality, provides an opportunity to disseminate online such rich cultural spaces, and preserve their patrimonial value. This paper presents the case study of 3D reconstructing the Universitary Central Library of Bucharest. First, we briefly present related work. Then, we analyze various reconstruction techniques. Latest hardware and software advances open a wide range of new reconstruction methods, each having advantages, costs and limitations. We discuss both automatic and manual reconstruction, and combinations of both. Next, we identify and analyze the problems to be solved for our reconstruction subject and pinpoint solutions offering fidelity, rapid reconstruction, moderate use of resources, and sufficient performance for real-time applications (including VR). Finally, we detail, through practical examples, the solutions or optimal techniques, depending on the characteristics of the part to be modeled. Together, they all form an efficient hybrid solution satisfying our objectives.

The ownership of smartphones has become usual, research showing associations between smartphone usage, addiction, and the users' individual characteristics. Our first objective is to examine the short form of Smartphone Addiction Scale. We also aimed to examine the relationships between smartphone addiction and the use of various smartphone applications. The findings show that the Smartphone Addiction Scale has good psychometric qualities. The number of hours spent using the smartphone, its general use, the positive attitudes towards it and the anxiety without technology mediate the relation between personality traits and the risk for addiction. Neuroticism, openness and conscientiousness predict the risk for smartphone addiction negatively. Although the present research is conducted in a new cultural context, the findings confirm several privious studies. The usefulness of technology cannot be challenged, but we believe it is necessary to pay more attention to the young people in lower educational cycles to prevent the excessive use of smartphones.