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Definitions of disability are changing, shifting from a narrow medical diagnosis to a biopsychosocial model of disability, where disability is conceptualised as a series of relational conditions that can potentially disadvantage individuals within environments. Implications of this new understanding of disability will have significant effects in the higher education sector, where there is increasing participation of disabled students. In this paper, we discuss one aspect of these implications through the topic of graduate employability. In doing so, we generate a new concept 'Employability for Inclusion' that can be utilised as an equity-focused lens for universities to consider how employability initiatives are inclusive to disabled and/or diverse students. To unpack this concept, we further illustrate how a biopsychosocial model of disability would impact key employability activities (e.g., work-integrated learning) and provide valuable insights into how the higher education sector can adopt emerging conceptualisations of disability and inclusion.

For over 30 years, the notion of authentic assessment in higher education has been adopted in academic practice, but it has managed to escape substantial critique. Although there have been multiple definitions and operationalisations of authentic assessment, current practice tends to foreground mimicking of work tasks. Authenticity cannot be completely unmoored from the reality of workplaces, the demands of the discipline, and the overall intended learning outcomes, however, a restricted view of how these aspects are represented in assessment can limit the sector's ability to prepare graduates who can engage with and shape the changing world. This paper elaborates the multiple challenges that some conceptualisations of authentic assessment contribute to assessment planning, recognising that assessment design always requires compromise. Three theoretical perspectives on authenticity are introduced to open new possibilities for authenticity in assessment. These are (1) psychological authenticity; (2) ontological fidelity; and (3) practice theory perspectives. The final section discusses how learning design might offer a means to operationalise theory. The paper concludes by suggesting that "authenticity" in assessment continues to hold value for the sector beyond its current uses through stronger theoretical conceptualisation and operationalisation of authenticity.

We propose a deep learning approach for high-resolution species distribution modelling (SDM) at large scale combining point-wise, crowd-sourced species observation data and environmental data with Sentinel-2 satellite imagery. What makes this task challenging is the great variety of controlling factors for species distribution, such as habitat conditions, human intervention, competition, disturbances, and evolutionary history. Experts either incorporate these factors into complex mechanistic models based on presence-absence data collected in field campaigns or train machine learning models to learn the relationship between environmental data and presence-only species occurrence. We extend the latter approach here and learn deep SDMs end-to-end based on point-wise, crowd-sourced presence-only data in combination with satellite imagery. Our method, dubbed Sat-SINR, jointly models the spatial distributions of 5.6k plant species across Europe and increases the spatial resolution by a factor of 100 compared to the current state of the art. We exhaustively test and ablate multiple variations of combining geo-referenced point data with satellite imagery and show that our deep learning-based SDM method consistently shows an improvement of up to 3 percentage points across three metrics. We make all code publicly available at https://github.com/ecovision-uzh/sat-sinr.

Understanding the impacts of changing climate and disturbance regimes on forest ecosystems is greatly aided by the use of process-based models. Such models simulate processes based on first principles of ecology, which requires parameterization. Parameterization is an important step in model development and application, defining the characteristics of trees and their responses to the environment, i.e., their traits. For species-specific models, parameterization is usually done at the level of individual species. Parameterization is indispensable for accurately modeling demographic processes, including growth, mortality, and regeneration of trees, along with their intra- and inter-specific interactions. As it is time-demanding to compile the parameters required to simulate forest ecosystems in complex models, simulations are often restricted to the most common tree species, genera, or plant-functional types. Yet, as tree species composition might change in the future, it is important to account for a broad range of species and their individual responses to drivers of change explicitly in simulations. Thus, species-specific parameterization is a critical task for making accurate projections about future forest trajectories, yet species parameters often remain poorly documented in simulation studies.We compiled and harmonized all existing tree species parameters available for the individual-based forest landscape and disturbance model (iLand). Since its first publication in 2012, iLand has been applied in 50 peer-reviewed publications across three continents throughout the Northern Hemisphere (i.e., Europe, North America, and Asia). The model operates at individual-tree level and simulates ecosystem processes at multiple spatial scales, making it a capable process-based model for studying forest change. However, the extensive number of processes and their interactions as well as the wide range of spatio-temporal scales considered in iLand require intensive parameterization, with tree species characterized by 66 unique parameters in the model. The database presented here includes parameters for 150 temperate and boreal tree species and provenances (i.e., regional variations). Excluding missing values, the database includes a total of 9,249 individual parameter entries. In addition, we provide parameters for the individual susceptibility of tree species to wind disturbance (five parameters) for a subset of 104 tree species and provenances (498 parameter entries). To guide further model parameterization efforts, we provide an estimate of uncertainty for each species based on how thoroughly simulations with the respective parameters were evaluated against independent data.Our dataset aids the future parameterization and application of iLand, and sets a new standard in documenting parameters used in process-based forest simulations. This dataset will support model application in previously unstudied areas and can facilitate the investigation of new tree species being introduced to well-studied systems (e.g., simulating assisted migration in the context of rapid climate change). Given that many process-based models rely on similar underlying processes our harmonized parameter set will be of relevance beyond the iLand community. Our work could catalyze further research into improving the parameterization of process-based forest models, increasing the robustness of projections of climate change impacts and adaptation strategies.

Process-based forest models combine biological, physical, and chemical process understanding to simulate forest dynamics as an emergent property of the system. As such, they are valuable tools to investigate the effects of climate change on forest ecosystems. Specifically, they allow testing of hypotheses regarding long-term ecosystem dynamics and provide means to assess the impacts of climate scenarios on future forest development. As a consequence, numerous local-scale simulation studies have been conducted over the past decades to assess the impacts of climate change on forests. These studies apply the best available models tailored to local conditions, parameterized and evaluated by local experts. However, this treasure trove of knowledge on climate change responses remains underexplored to date, as a consistent and harmonized dataset of local model simulations is missing.Here, our objectives were (i) to compile existing local simulations on forest development under climate change in Europe in a common database, (ii) to harmonize them to a common suite of output variables, and (iii) to provide a standardized vector of auxiliary environmental variables for each simulated location to aid subsequent investigations. Our dataset of European stand- and landscape-level forest simulations contains over 1.1 million simulation runs representing 135 million simulation years for more than 13,000 unique locations spread across Europe. The data were harmonized to consistently describe forest development in terms of stand structure (dominant height), composition (dominant species, admixed species), and functioning (leaf area index). Auxiliary variables provided include consistent daily climate information (temperature, precipitation, radiation, vapor pressure deficit) as well as information on local site conditions (soil depth, soil physical properties, soil water holding capacity, plant-available nitrogen). The present dataset facilitates analyses across models and locations, with the aim to better harness the valuable information contained in local simulations for large-scale policy support, and for fostering a deeper understanding of the effects of climate change on forest ecosystems in Europe.

The vocational experiences and skills of young adolescents could be infused into formal education by identifying career competencies to be taught within the academic curriculum. Such curriculum practices that embed educational and career pathways must also include the perspectives of students and the community, particularly those from marginalised groups. Drawing on data from 111 teachers, principals, carers and students, this paper presents research undertaken to co-design career education lesson plans within an infused model of the curriculum for early Middle Year students from regional, rural, and remote Australia. The lesson plans and activities were designed to allow for meaningful self-reflection and goal-setting that could be seamlessly infused into the formal curriculum and help embed early-stage career education. The paper concludes by projecting opportunities and challenges for seamless curriculum integration, while pertinent to the Australian context, can also be read with broader relevance to other educational systems and schools.

Student representation and student partnership differ and the difference matters. To further scholarly understanding of, and appreciation for, the important difference between the two, we examine these two commonly evoked conceptions for student voice in higher education. We draw on two points of difference--responsibility and access--to illuminate conceptualisations and discourses of each in the current literature. In doing so, we clarify the unique contributions of each, shaped by differing contexts of interaction, and articulate issues arising by confounding and conflating partnership and representation in the name of student voice. Advancing an argument for an ecosystem of student participation grounded in student voice, we warn of the harm in positioning student partners as speaking for other students and the risk of diminishing the importance of elected student representation systems in favour of staff selected student partner models of student representation.

Purpose: To evaluate magnetic resonance image (MRI) findings in children and adolescents suffering from knee pain without traumatic or physical overload history and to identify potential anatomic risk factors. Material and Methods: A total of 507 MRIs of 6- to 20-year-old patients (251 males; 256 females) were evaluated with regard to detectable pathologies of the knee. The results were compared to a control group without pain (n = 73; 34 males; 39 females). A binary logistic regression model and t-tests for paired and unpaired samples were used to identify possible risk factors and significant anatomic differences of the study population. Results: In 348 patients (68.6%), at least one pathology was detected. The most commonly detected finding was chondromalacia of the patellofemoral (PF) joint (n = 205; 40.4%). Chondral lesions of the PF joint occurred significantly more often in knee pain patients than in the control group (40% vs. 11.0%; p = 0.001), especially in cases of a patella tilt angle > 5° (p ≤ 0.001), a bony sulcus angle > 150° (p = 0.002), a cartilaginous sulcus angle > 150° (p = 0.012), a lateral trochlear inclination < 11° (p ≤ 0.001), a lateralised patella (p = 0.023) and a Wiberg type II or III patella shape (p = 0.019). Moreover, a larger patella tilt angle (p = 0.021), a greater bony sulcus angle (p = 0.042), a larger cartilaginous sulcus angle (p = 0.038) and a lower value of the lateral trochlear inclination (p = 0.014) were detected in knee pain patients compared to the reference group. Conclusion: Chondromalacia of the PF joint is frequently observed in children and adolescents suffering from non-overload atraumatic knee pain, whereby a patella tilt angle > 5°, a bony sulcus angle > 150°, a cartilaginous sulcus angle > 150°, a lateral trochlear inclination < 11°, a lateralised patella and a Wiberg type II or III patella shape seem to represent anatomic risk factors.

Abstract FLASH-radiotherapy may provide significant sparing of healthy tissue through ultra-high dose rates in protons, electrons, and x-rays while maintaining the tumor control. Key factors for the FLASH effect might be oxygen depletion, the immune system, and the irradiated blood volume, but none could be fully confirmed yet. Therefore, further investigations are necessary. We investigated the protective (tissue sparing) effect of FLASH in proton treatment using an in-vivo mouse ear model. The right ears of Balb/c mice were irradiated with 20 MeV protons at the ion microprobe SNAKE in Garching near Munich by using three dose rates (Conv = 0.06 Gy/s, Flash9 = 9.3 Gy/s and Flash930 = 930 Gy/s) at a total dose of 23 Gy or 33 Gy. The ear thickness, desquamation, and erythema combined in an inflammation score were measured for 180 days. The cytokines TGF-β1, TNF-α, IL1α, and IL1β were analyzed in the blood sampled in the first 4 weeks and at termination day. No differences in inflammation reactions were visible in the 23 Gy group for the different dose rates. In the 33 Gy group, the ear swelling and the inflammation score for Flash9 was reduced by (57 ± 12) % and (67 ± 17) % and for Flash930 by (40 ± 13) % and (50 ± 17) % compared to the Conv dose rate. No changes in the cytokines in the blood could be measured. However, an estimation of the irradiated blood volume demonstrates, that 100-times more blood is irradiated when using Conv compared to using Flash9 or Flash930. This indicates that blood might play a role in the underlying mechanisms in the protective effect of FLASH.

The chemical composition of aerosol particles is a key parameter for human health and climate effects. Single-particle mass spectrometry (SPMS) has evolved to a mature technology with unique chemical coverage and the capability to analyze the distribution of aerosol components in the particle ensemble in real time. With the fully automated characterization of the chemical profile of the aerosol particles, selective real-time monitoring of air quality could be performed, e.g., for urgent risk assessments due to particularly harmful pollutants. For aerosol particle classification, mostly unsupervised clustering algorithms (ART-2a, K-means and their derivatives) are used, which require manual postprocessing. In this work, we focus on supervised algorithms to tackle the problem of the automatic classification of large amounts of aerosol particle data. Supervised learning requires data with labels to train a predictive model. Therefore, we created a labeled benchmark dataset containing ∼ 24 000 particles with eight different coarse categories that were highly abundant at a measurement in summer in Central Europe: elemental carbon (EC), organic carbon and elemental carbon (OC-EC), potassium-rich (K-rich), calcium-rich (Ca-rich), iron-rich (Fe-rich), vanadium-rich (V-rich), magnesium-rich (Mg-rich) and sodium-rich (Na-rich). Using the chemical features of particles, the performance of the following classical supervised algorithms was tested: K-nearest neighbors, support vector machine, decision tree, random forest and multi-layer perceptron. This work shows that despite the entrenched position of unsupervised clustering algorithms in the field, the use of supervised algorithms has the potential to replace the manual step of clustering algorithms in many applications, where real-time data analysis is essential. For the classification of the eight classes, the prediction accuracy of several supervised algorithms exceeded 97 %. The trained model was used to classify ∼ 49 000 particles from a blind dataset in 0.2 s, taking into account also a class of “unclassified” particles. The predictions are highly consistent with the results obtained in a previous study using ART-2a.

Previous research has evidenced the importance of student and staff interactions as critical functions to support student success at university. Increasingly, academic advising units support these interactions. However, while common throughout North American contexts, little is known about the implementation of such units internationally. In this paper, we use a case study methodology to discuss the introduction of an academic advising team at an Australian university to explore how staff adjusted to these new roles and their reflections on how others perceived them. We use reflective diaries submitted by the advisors (n = 11) to analyze how their role identities formed over time and suggested recommendations for supporting teams in the future.

A persistent issue in Australia, and globally, is how to improve participation rates in higher education for students from regional and rural areas. In this paper, we tackle this challenge by exploring the idea of a Community Embedded University (CEU). We draw on empirical data from three participatory co-design workshops with university students (n = 15) and staff (n = 6), to provoke discussion on what a CEU model might look like, the activities it might engage in, and how it would collaborate with local communities to create stronger partnerships and support student engagement. Through our study, we identify key value propositions to a CEU, including fostering students' sense of belongingness and opportunities to engage in relationship-rich pedagogy through community-university collaborative teaching. However, we also identify several challenges to enacting a CEU, such as complexities relating to distributed power-sharing and decision-making, and how to situate learning experiences in place while maintaining flexible learning spaces. We propose that, while the idea of a CEU may remain an idealised model, our outlined principles to creating a CEU may be a useful framework for universities to reflect upon and consider how they engage with their local communities.

Disparity in educational and career outcomes between rural, regional and remote (RRR) students and their metropolitan counterparts persists despite successive federal and state government initiatives. In this paper, we will present a study that highlights one important, yet overlooked, avenue to improve outcomes for RRR students: early-stage careers education. Informed by interviews conducted with RRR principals and deputy principals from Victoria and Queensland (n = 10), we present a new approach to the delivery and content of careers education in RRR contexts. The approach advocates for a purposeful programme from Year 7, which includes the engagement of key influencers such as parents/carers, peers and local industry, as well as tailoring activities to also reflect regional job trends and pathways. The broader implications of our findings to curriculum design are also presented and challenge the prevailing approach of Year 9/10 as the optimal period to immerse careers education.

Work-integrated learning (WIL) or university placements are valuable opportunities for students to apply their knowledge in an authentic work setting and help support their transition from university to employment. However, as our study evidenced, students with disability face significant and unique barriers to securing and completing WIL placements. In this study, we surveyed students with disability at an Australian university (n = 132) to explore their experiences and perceptions of WIL placements. Our findings indicate that while many students are motivated to participate in placements, they have concerns about how their disability, medical or mental health condition(s) will be accepted by the organisations and whether their requests for accommodations will be facilitated without judgement from supervisors. The findings from our study are relevant to the fields of disability/inclusion and employability, as the results showcase that current policies and practices do not adequately support diverse students.

Assessment plays an important role in higher education, both guiding student learning and judging student success. However, assessment that treats all students the same is inequitable, since it ignores differences in students' past and present circumstances. A shift to assessment for inclusion is advocated to promote student equity; one that incorporates diverse students' perspectives on and experiences of assessment. A students-as-partners approach was taken to explore diverse students' experiences of assessment, and their suggestions to make assessment more inclusive. A team of six staff and five student partners undertook a co-research project, facilitating workshops with 52 students from diverse backgrounds to understand their assessment experiences. While assessment goals varied, students reported assessment was an emotional experience, citing challenges with assessment design, process and broader university support. These findings can be aligned and incorporated within a previously developed assessment design framework, demonstrating that students can make nuanced judgements about the quality of assessment design in relation to inclusion. Future work on assessment design which seeks to be inclusive can and should therefore routinely involve students.

The practice of students as partners can be applied to numerous facets of the university, including curriculum design, governance, and co-curricular programs. However, while scholars have also conceptualised that student partnership can occur through co-research, adoption is far from mainstream. In this paper, we seek to go 'under the hood' of students as partners in co-research by exploring and reflecting upon our own recent co-research project. By doing so we aim to understand why the practice of co-research with students has failed to gain widescale traction in higher education. To support our study, we use collective autoethnography which helps to structure our reflections of the co-research process and create dialogue and shared understanding among the research team. Our findings identify two central points of tensions that prohibit partnership in co-research, including how to best support collaborative and reciprocal learning between students and staff in research projects and how students' contributions can be reconceptualised to be different, yet equal, to experienced researchers. Through our findings, we advocate for universities to consider sustainable practices to support students in co-research and for scholarly journals to reflect on how student authors can be appropriately recognised.

Student partnership, a growing phenomenon in higher education, has transformed the way universities collaborate with students. Yet, to date, the academic library has rarely been examined as a place for student and staff partnerships to thrive. In this article, we present findings from a national students as partners benchmarking survey conducted across Australian academic libraries, with responses from library staff representing 35 universities across six states (n = 210). Our findings highlight that while many library staff see the potential benefits to student partnership, this potential is largely unrealised. Our findings further tackle the commonly perceived barriers to partnership specific to the library context, such as staff understanding of student partnership and its corresponding practices as well as challenges and barriers to student engagement. We conclude with a recommendation for more reflection in academic libraries on how to create a connected and relationship-rich culture of partnership.

Extant literature depicts theoretical territories of student voice and partnership as discrete categories. In this article, we argue that this depiction limits practice. We posit instead that theorisation which advances holistic voice and partnership through an active student participation (ASP) approach is necessary for liberatory higher education informed by practitioners and researchers together. We draw on emergent examples in practice which offer opportunities for further development for theorists and practitioners to create novel research opportunities. Through drawing on conceptions of student partnership pedagogy as a tool to address grand challenges, and an acknowledgement of the power potential in student voice and representation roles, we advance new possibility for transformative higher education for students. Ultimately, we advance an ASP approach which crosses the student voice and partnership partition towards a holistic and integrated active and collective student engagement and responsibility for higher education.

This article will explore usage patterns and perceptions of online learning support among university students. As higher education expands to include increasingly diverse student cohorts, alternative online-supported learning services have gained attention as a mechanism to support student success. However, there is a paucity of research regarding student perceptions and usage patterns for online support and the impact of these services on students' learning experiences. To address this gap, this study explored student usage patterns and perceptions of impact of students enrolled in a large research-intensive university in Australia, using data collected through the third-party provider and a supplementary student survey from July 2018-June 2019. Overall, 90.4% of students considered their interaction with the service to be positive, with 81% reporting that the service assisted their learning. While the service is not aimed at replacing face-to-face tutoring of academic skills support, this study suggests that online-supported learning services may provide an increasingly relevant and useful service to students and ­supplement face-to-face offerings.

Immune checkpoint therapies such as PD-1 blockade have vastly improved the treatment of numerous cancers, including basal cell carcinoma (BCC). However, patients afflicted with pancreatic ductal carcinoma (PDAC), one of the deadliest malignancies, overwhelmingly exhibit negative responses to checkpoint therapy. We sought to combine data analysis and machine learning to differentiate the putative mechanisms of BCC and PDAC non-response. We discover that increased MHC-I expression in malignant cells and suppression of MHC and PD-1/PD-L expression in CD8+ T cells is associated with nonresponse to treatment. Furthermore, we leverage machine learning to predict response to PD-1 blockade on a cellular level. We confirm divergent resistance mechanisms between BCC, PDAC, and melanoma and highlight the potential for rapid and affordable testing of gene expression in BCC patients to accurately predict response to checkpoint therapies. Our findings present an optimistic outlook for the use of quantitative cross-cancer analyses in characterizing immune responses and predicting immunotherapy outcomes.

The effects of adjuvants for increasing the immunogenicity of influenza vaccines are well known. However, the effect of adjuvants on increasing the breadth of cross-reactivity is less well understood. In this study we have performed a systematic screen of different toll-like receptor (TLR) agonists, with and without a squalene-in-water emulsion on the immunogenicity of a recombinant trimerized hemagglutinin (HA) vaccine in mice after single-dose administration. Antibody (Ab) cross-reactivity for other variants within and outside the immunizing subtype (homosubtypic and heterosubtypic cross-reactivity, respectively) was assessed using a protein microarray approach. Most adjuvants induced broad IgG profiles, although the response to a combination of CpG, MPLA and AddaVax (termed 'IVAX-1') appeared more quickly and reached a greater magnitude than the other formulations tested. Antigen-specific plasma cell labeling experiments show the components of IVAX-1 are synergistic. This adjuvant preferentially stimulates CD4 T cells to produce Th1>Th2 type (IgG2c>IgG1) antibodies and cytokine responses. Moreover, IVAX-1 induces identical homo- and heterosubtypic IgG and IgA cross-reactivity profiles when administered intranasally. Consistent with these observations, a single-cell transcriptomics analysis demonstrated significant increases in expression of IgG1, IgG2b and IgG2c genes of B cells in H5/IVAX-1 immunized mice relative to naïve mice, as well as significant increases in expression of the IFNγ gene of both CD4 and CD8 T cells. These data support the use of adjuvants for enhancing the breath and durability of antibody responses of influenza virus vaccines.

ABSTRACTThe clinical successes of immune checkpoint blockade have invigorated efforts to activate T cell-mediated responses against cancer. Targeting members of the PVR family, consisting of inhibitory receptors TIGIT, CD96, and CD112R, has been an active area of clinical investigation. In this study, the binding interactions and molecular assemblies of the PVR family receptors and ligands have been assessed in vitro. Furthermore, the anti-TIGIT monoclonal antibody BMS-986207 crystal structure in complex with TIGIT was determined and shows that the antibody binds an epitope that is commonly targeted by the CD155 ligand as well as other clinical anti-TIGIT antibodies. In contrast to previously proposed models, where TIGIT outcompetes costimulatory receptor CD226 for binding to CD155 due to much higher affinity (nanomolar range), our data rather suggest that PVR family members all engage in interactions with relatively weak affinity (micromolar range), including TIGIT and CD155 interactions. Thus, TIGIT and other PVR inhibitory receptors likely elicit immune suppression via increased surface expression rather than inherent differences in affinity. This work provides an improved foundational understanding of the PVR family network and mechanistic insight into therapeutic antibody intervention.

Student representation and student partnership differ and the difference matters. To further scholarly understanding of, and appreciation for, the important difference between the two, we examine these two commonly evoked conceptions for student voice in higher education. We draw on two points of difference-responsibility and access-to illuminate conceptualisations and discourses of each in the current literature. In doing so, we clarify the unique contributions of each, shaped by differing contexts of interaction, and articulate issues arising by confounding and conflating partnership and representation in the name of student voice. Advancing an argument for an ecosystem of student participation grounded in student voice, we warn of the harm in positioning student partners as speaking for other students and the risk of diminishing the importance of elected student representation systems in favour of staff selected student partner models of student representation., Author(s): K. E. Matthews [sup.1] , M. Dollinger [sup.2] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.1003.2, 0000 0000 9320 7537, Institute for Teaching and Learning Innovation, University of Queensland, , Brisbane, Australia (2) [...]

The enormous potential of additive manufacturing (AM), particularly laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF), to produce radiofrequency cavities (cavities) has already been demonstrated. However, the required geometrical accuracy for GHz TM010 cavities is currently only achieved by (a) avoiding downskin angles <40∘, which in turn leads to a cavity geometry with reduced performance, or (b) co-printed support structures, which are difficult to remove for small GHz cavities. We have developed an L-PBF-based manufacturing routine to overcome this limitation. To enable arbitrary geometries, co-printed support structures are used that are designed in such a way that they can be removed after printing by electrochemical post-processing, which simultaneously reduces the surface roughness and thus maximizes the quality factor Q0. The manufacturing approach is evaluated on two TM010 single cavities printed entirely from high-purity copper. Both cavities achieve the desired resonance frequency and a Q0 of approximately 8300.

Background: Transcatheter closure of a patent foramen ovale (PFO) is performed in cryptogenic stroke and other conditions. Information is lacking for some devices. Methods: We aimed to evaluate the Figulla Flex II PFO Occluder (FFP) and Figulla Flex UNI Occluder (FFU) through a retrospective multi-center registry. Results: 527 patients were included. Mean age was 48.9 (±13.8) years. The procedure was under transthoracic, transesophageal or intracardiac echocardiography in 185 (35.1%), 193 (36.6%) and 149 (28.3%) cases, respectively, and under general anesthesia in 191 patients (36.2%). The FFP and FFU were used in 408 (77.4%) and 119 (22.6%) cases, respectively. The success rate was 99.1%. Median follow-up was 1.1 (0.5–2.5) years. A new atrial fibrillation/flutter within six months occurred in 14 (2.7%) cases, with no difference between devices. One device embolization in the pulmonary artery was identified two years post-procedure. Residual shunts occurred in 18 (6.9%) cases at 1 year, with TIA in three (16.6%) patients. Out of 437 patients with stroke/TIA, 260 (59%) were followed more than one year after closure. Median follow-up was 2.1 (1.17–3.1) years, with four recurrent strokes/TIA. Conclusions: The FFP and FFU devices are safe and effective for PFO closure, with very few atrial fibrillation/flutter and neurologic events, except in cases with a residual shunt.