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The European Union has been allocating funds for the energy transition to meet escalating global energy demands while minimising the environmental impact. This paper focuses on the impact of post-pandemic policies on photovoltaic technology in Italy and Portugal, specifically analysing self-consumption schemes and energy communities. A techno-economic assessment identified optimal PV systems for four families in each country, considering financial incentives. Italy offers Superbonus 110 and Ecobonus schemes, while Portugal provides access to the Environmental Fund. Profitable PV systems with storage are feasible in Italy but not in Portugal. Superbonus 110 favours smaller systems, Ecobonus supports larger ones, and Portuguese policies prioritise smaller systems. Simulations of energy communities for the same families showed that in Italy, the best configurations consist of families acting as producers with larger PV capacities and smaller batteries. In contrast, in Portugal, the policies favour smaller PV systems without batteries, resulting in optimal configurations where families are solely consumers. This research underscores diverse national approaches to post-pandemic energy policies and their nuanced impacts on PV technology in Italy and Portugal. It can be concluded that energy communities offer greater profitability than individual self-consumption schemes. This is because individual households continue to prioritise self-consumption and personal savings while selling their excess energy at a more favourable price than what they would receive from the grid. • In Italy, there are financial incentives and in Portugal, electricity cost reductions. • The models used the Net Present Value and the Internal Rate of Return as indicators. • In Italy, Superbonus 100 favours smaller systems, while Ecobonus supports larger ones. • Smaller systems without batteries for self-consumption are more profitable in Portugal. • Energy communities are more economically viable in both countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A large variation in the severity of disease symptoms is one of the key open questions in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemics. The fact that only a small subset of people infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 develops severe disease suggests that there have to be some predisposing factors, but biomarkers that reliably predict disease severity have not been found so far. Since overactivation of the immune system is implicated in a severe form of COVID-19 and the immunoglobulin G (IgG) glycosylation is known to be involved in the regulation of different immune processes, we evaluated the association of interindividual variation in IgG N-glycome composition with the severity of COVID-19. The analysis of 166 severe and 167 mild cases from hospitals in Spain, Italy and Portugal revealed statistically significant differences in the composition of the IgG N-glycome. The most notable difference was the decrease in bisecting N -acetylglucosamine in severe patients from all three cohorts. IgG galactosylation was also lower in severe cases in all cohorts, but the difference in galactosylation was not statistically significant after correction for multiple testing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Random biopsies are recommended to identify individuals at risk of gastric adenocarcinoma. Cumulative evidence suggests that narrow-band imaging (NBI) can be used to grade gastric intestinal metaplasia (GIM). We aimed to externally validate a classification of endoscopic grading of gastric intestinal metaplasia (EGGIM).Methods: Consecutive patients in two centers were submitted to high resolution white-light gastroscopy followed by NBI to estimate EGGIM - a score (0 - 10) resulting from the sum of endoscopic assessments of GIM, scored as 0, 1, or 2 for no GIM, ≤ 30 %, or > 30 % of the mucosa, respectively, in five areas (lesser and greater curvature of both antrum and corpus, and incisura). If GIM was endoscopically suspected, targeted biopsies were performed; if GIM was not noticeable, random biopsies were performed according to the Sydney system to estimate the operative link on gastric intestinal metaplasia (OLGIM; the gold standard).Results: 250 patients (62 % female; median age 55 years) were included. GIM was staged as OLGIM 0, I, II, III, IV in 136 (54 %), 15 (6 %), 52 (21 %), 34 (14 %), and 13 (5 %) patients, respectively. All patients with GIM except three were identifiable with targeted biopsies. For the diagnosis of OLGIM III/IV, the area under the ROC curve was 0.96 (95 % confidence interval [CI] 0.93 - 0.98) and by using the cutoff > 4, sensitivity, specificity, and positive likelihood ratio were 89 %, 95 %, and 16.5, respectively; results were similar (91 %, 95 %, and 18.1) when excluding patients with foveolar hyperplasia.Conclusions: For the first time, an endoscopic approach was externally validated to determine the risk of gastric cancer without the need for biopsies. This can be used to simplify and individualize the management of patients with gastric precancerous conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]