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The aim of Task 2.7 of CONCERT was to unravel research and innovation needs that might help the implementation process of Council Directive 2013/59/EURATOM of 5 December 2013 laying down basic safety standards for protection against the dangers arising from exposure to ionising radiation and provide input to joint programming of integrative research actions. To achieve our aims we participated in meetings involving the European Commission and national authorities, regulators and Technical Support Organizations (TSOs). The Article 31 expert group of the European Commission was successfully contacted and the group identified six very important areas on the field of radiation protection where additional science and innovation are necessary. Further actions were the organisation of a teleconference and a workshop and the development of a questionnaire to unravel national needs for new research an innovation. Finally, we were able to come out with seven topics that should be included in new CONCERT and EURATOM research calls. These are  Individual justification and optimisation of medical exposures  New data on radiation-induced health effects  Low dose irradiation in utero  Organ doses  Dosimetry  Emergency situations  Communication about the effects of ionising radiation

SummaryAims – To explore: a) the burden of care, and the professional and social support in relatives of patients with bipolar disorders; b) the psychosocial interventions provided to patients and their families by Italian mental health centres. Methods – 342 outpatients with a bipolar disorder and their key-relatives were randomly recruited in 26 Italian mental health centres, randomly selected and stratified by geographical area and population density. Family burden was explored in relation to: a) patient's clinical status and disability; b) relatives’ social and professional support; c) interventions received by patients and their families; d) geographical area. Results – In the previous two months, global functioning was moderately impaired in 36% of the patients, and severely impaired in 34% of them. Twenty-one percent of patients attended a rehabilitative programme, and 3% of their families received a psychoeducational intervention. Burden was higher when patient's symptoms and disability were more severe, the relatives had poorer psychological support and help in emergencies by the social network, and the family lived in Southern Italy. Differences in family burden in relation to geographical area disappeared when psychosocial interventions were provided. Conclusion – This study highlights the need to increase the availability of rehabilitative interventions for patients with bipolar disorders and of psychological support for their families, especially in Southern Italy.

Objectives: Technology is increasingly being used to help practise mindfulness. Immersive virtual reality-enhanced mindfulness may prove especially effective for a wide range of clinical interventions where traditional mindfulness is currently proving valuable. The current paper provides a preliminary survey of research on this topic, aimed at verifying scientific evidence that VR technology improves the practice of mindfulness and its therapeutic effectiveness. A recognition on emerging technological solutions aimed at improving decentering and interoceptive awareness (IA) in mindfulness interventions is also proposed. Methods: A systematic search was performed in ACM, Science Direct, Web of Science, Scopus, IEEE Xplore, and PubMed, using the following keywords: “mindfulness” AND “virtual reality”. Quality Assessment Tool for Quantitative Studies (QATQS) was used to assess study quality. Results: Fifty-three papers were considered in the review involving 1652 subjects. Pain, stress, depression, anxiety, borderline personality disorder, and addictions are the addressed clinical cases. The quality analysis did not reveal any strong quality papers and over 90% were rated as weak. According to the majority of the studies, VR guarantees increasing relaxation self-efficacy, reducing mind wandering, and preserving attention resources. Interoceptive awareness and decentering are both overlooked in the literature. Conclusions: VR exhibits potential favourable features to support mindfulness practice, especially immersive and multisensory VR. The use of bio/neurofeedback sensors allows an adaptive experience in real time. A design proposal for upcoming trends in VR-supported mindfulness was presented and the need for more rigorous, randomised controlled studies in the future was highlighted.

Therapeutic effects of Mindfulness meditation practices in clinical interventions, specifically in the treatment of stress, anxiety, depression, chronic and acute pain are scientifically well founded. Mindfulness is increasingly being supported by technology and among various interventions immersive VR seems rather peculiar due to its ability to improve decentering and interoceptive awareness. A systematic review on Virtual Reality supported Mindfulness is currently being published. In this paper, some preliminary results of this review are presented, also providing a brief discussion about a possible evolutionary technological trend, on the basis of the input and output perceptual domains exploited.

The latest events related to the spread of the Covid-19 virus have seen the rise of new social needs in countries like Italy, especially regarding the most vulnerable individuals. The emergency highlighted the insufficiency of some traditional methods of psychological support for that part of the population concretely facing the risk of social isolation. This research aims to discuss an innovative methodology that, by exploiting information and communication technologies (ICT) resources, combines the need to protect the vulnerable population with the need to prevent their social isolation, by intervening on the psychological well-being of users most at risk. In particular, we want to evaluate the feasibility of a Cross Reality (XR) project that combines the technologies of Virtual, Mixed and Augmented Reality with the most consolidated therapeutic methods of Mindfulness and Art Therapy.