In the latest years, European governments have increasingly criminalized providing support to displaced people. Humanitarian non-governmental organizations (NGO) carrying out life-saving search and rescue (SAR) activities in the Mediterranean Sea have been facing wide obstacles in aiding newcomers, and in many instances have been subject to criminal proceedings. This research attempts to analyse the reasons why maritime sea rescue is equated with illegality. In doing so, it seeks to answer the question, “what are the challenges to reaching legal protection for humanitarian aid workers carrying out search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean when faced with criminalization?” The study argues that humanitarian aid workers (HAW) who have been criminalized as a result of their involvement in maritime sea rescue activities, have to endure many systemic deficiencies. Three layers of interrelated challenges are identified: legal, socio-political, and personal challenges. The study concludes that an independent, quality legal defence; a revisitation of the voluntary nature of the humanitarian exemption clause in the 2002 Facilitation Package; and a larger engagement of civil society actors in changing the narrative and improving the public’s practical knowledge of migration would ensure better protection for humanitarian practitioners involved in search and rescue activities. / <p>It was online.</p>

Gobies (Gobiidae, Actinopterygii) are small, predominantly cryptic, marine, brackish and freshwater fishes. They abundantly inhabit coastal waters, although their occurrence is far from being mapped due to their inconspicity, often hidden lifestyle and a lack of commercial use. Information about distribution of many species is therefore still rather poor. Many species are known only from a few locations scattered throughout the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic. This suggests that most species could actually have a relatively continuous distribution area. Comparing the genetic variability of geographically distant populations of the same species can help to detect whether there is some population subdivision and whether populations are genetically isolated from each other. The aim of my thesis was to compare genetic variability of the populations of eight goby species: Corcyrogobius liechtensteini, Gobius cruentatus, Gobius geniporus, Gobius incognitus, Chromogobius quadrivittatus, Chromogobius zebratus, Millerigobius macrocephalus and Zebrus zebrus within Mediterranean Sea and north-eastern Atlantic Ocean. Samples used in this work were collected from two Atlantic (Spain and Portugal) and seven Mediterranean localities (France, Sicily, Croatia, Montenegro, Greece, and Cyprus - northern and...

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a chronic condition recognized as the inability to maintain glucose homeostasis, typically presenting with insulin resistance and systemic inflammation. With the prevalence of T2DM and major risk factors such as prediabetes and obesity increasing each year, there is a crucial need to identify strategies for the management and prevention of this condition. Addressing lifestyle-related risk factors through consumption of a well-balanced, nutritious diet and maintaining regular moderate- to high-intensity physical activity may provide a strategy for improving glycemic control, improving metrics of body composition, and decreasing the inflammatory response associated with metabolic dysregulation. Twenty-two overweight to obese adults with a medical diagnosis of T2DM, indicators of prediabetes, or who were metabolically healthy participated in Cal Poly’s Nutrition and Exercise in Type 2 Diabetes (CPNET) study. The study protocol included adherence to a Mediterranean-style diet, daily consumption of a high-quality whey protein supplement, and adherence to the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans for 16 weeks. Body composition data, via dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA), and fasting blood samples were collected at baseline and following the intervention. Due to restrictions associated with the global COVID-19 pandemic, only 13 participants were able to return for the second data collection following the 16-week intervention. The prediabetic and T2DM groups exhibited reductions in fasting plasma glucose to that of normal and prediabetic levels, respectively, while the T2DM group also showed improvement in hemoglobin A1c to the prediabetic level. Additionally, the metabolically healthy, overweight group demonstrated significant improvements in adiposity, while the obese prediabetic and T2DM groups showed non-significant improvements in all measured metrics of body composition. No changes were observed in inflammatory biomarkers. Thus, our results suggest that adherence to a well-balanced nutritious diet and regular physical activity may improve parameters of glycemic control and provide benefits to body composition that help manage and prevent the development of T2DM.

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The legacy of the wartime Office of Strategic Services (OSS) as the forerunner of the post-war Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is well chronicled. However, the professional path of those involved in covert American Intelligence special operations has been almost completely neglected. Popular writers have focused on OSS heroics while CIA-insiders have meticulously detailed the bureaucratic struggles fought by the OSS in Washington, D.C. The special skills and organization developed by the OSS were unlike any ever before utilized by an American institution. The OSS built an organizational and operational capability that sought to take advantage of resistance in German-occupied territory through the collection of secret intelligence and special operations supporting resistance groups. To accomplish this, the OSS established and utilized inventive new methods of recruitment, training, and operations to lay the groundwork for the new professional path of the American Intelligence officer. An analysis of OSS field operations in the Mediterranean Theater during the Second World War yields the best insight into this nascent professionalism as it grew from ideas into reality. The OSS developed its own definition of intelligence while grappling with incorporating old and new standards of professional behavior into the organization and among its members. Covert training and recruitment materials generously provided by British agents such as William Stephenson gave the OSS the jump start it needed to begin to forge a new path in subversive operations. British covert intelligence embodied traditional field craft, but OSS members would be the missionaries of a new uniquely American specialized covert operations working for American interests in conjunction with partisans in enemy-controlled territory. OSS members hailed from a wide-variety of American business, military, academic, and civilian backgrounds, bringing with them new ideas and old conceptions of what it meant to be a professional. While ultimately unsuccessful in maintaining its existence after the war, the OSS established a new path forward for American Intelligence which recognized the groundbreaking work done by the OSS and incorporated many facets of that into the new CIA. / History

Yes / Background: National guidelines emphasize healthy eating to promote wellbeing and prevention of non-communicable diseases. The perceived healthiness of food is determined by many factors affecting food intake. A positive perception of healthy eating has been shown to be associated with greater diet quality. Internet-based methodologies allow contact with large populations. Our present study aims to design and a short nutritional perception questionnaire, to be used as a screening tool for assessing nutritional status, and to predict an optimal level of personalisation in nutritional advice delivered via the Internet. Methods: Data from all participants who were screened and then enrolled into the Food4Me proof-of-principle study (n=2369) were used to determine the optimal items for inclusion in a novel screening tool, the Nutritional Perception Screening Questionnaire-9 (NPSQ9). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were performed on anthropometric and biochemical data and on dietary indices acquired from participants who had completed the Food4Me dietary intervention (n=1153). Baseline and intervention data were analysed using linear regression and linear mixed regression, respectively. Results: A final model with 9 NPSQ items was validated against the dietary intervention data. NPSQ9 scores were inversely associated with BMI (β=-0.181, p<0.001) and waist circumference (Β=-0.155, p<0.001), and positively associated with total carotenoids (β=0.198, p<0.001), omega-3 fatty acid index (β=0.155, p<0.001), Healthy Eating Index (HEI) (β=0.299, p<0.001) and Mediterranean Diet Score (MDS) (β=0. 279, p<0.001). Findings from the longitudinal intervention study showed a greater reduction in BMI and improved dietary indices among participants with lower NPSQ9 scores. Conclusions: Healthy eating perceptions and dietary habits captured by the NPSQ9 score, based on 9 questionnaire items, were associated with reduced body weight and improved diet quality. Likewise, participants with a lower score achieved greater health improvements than those with higher scores, in response to personalised advice, suggesting that NPSQ9 may be used for early evaluation of nutritional status and to tailor nutritional advice. / European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for 23 research, technological development and demonstration (grant agreement no. 265494). "la Caixa" Banking Foundation through a grant.

Yes / Purpose – Randomised controlled trials identify causal links between variables but not why an outcome has occurred. This analysis sought to determine how psychological factors assessed at baseline influenced response to personalised nutrition. Design/methodology/approach – Web-based, randomised, controlled trial (RCT) was conducted across seven European countries. Volunteers, both male and female, aged over 18 years were randomised to either a non-personalised (control) or a personalised (treatment) dietary advice condition. Linear mixed model analysis with fixed effects was used to compare associations between internal and external health locus of control (HLoC), nutrition self-efficacy (NS-E) and self-report habit index (S-RHI) at baseline (N 5 1444), with healthy eating index (HEI) and Mediterranean diet index (MDI) scores between conditions post-intervention (N 5 763). Findings – An increase in MDI scores was observed between baseline and six months in the treatment group which was associated with higher NS-E (p / EU FP7 Project “Personalised nutrition: an integrated analysis of opportunities and challenges” (Contract No. KBBE. 2010.2.3–02, Project No. 265494)

Yes / The Iron Age in Europe was a period of tremendous cultural dynamism, during which the values and constructs of urbanised Mediterranean civilisations clashed with alternative webs of identity in ‘barbarian’ temperate Europe. Until recently archaeologists and ancient historians have tended to view the cultural identities of Iron Age Europeans as essentially monolithic (Romans, Greeks, Celts, Illyrians etc). Dominant narratives have been concerned with the supposed origins and spread of peoples, like ‘the Celts’ (e.g. COLLIS 2003), and their subsequent ‘Hellenisation’ or ‘Romanisation’ through encounters with neighbouring societies. Yet there is little to suggest that collective identity in this period was exclusively or predominantly ethnic, national or even tribal. Instead we need to examine the impact of cultural encounters at the more local level of the individual, kin-group or lineage, exploring identity as a more dynamic, layered construct. / HERA, European Commission

Die normannische Eroberung Süditaliens und die Etablierung eines neuen Königreiches unter einem normannischen König im Jahr 1130 faszinierte die zeitgenössischen Chronisten ebenso wie die Historiker:innen der jüngeren Epochen. Dementsprechend umfangreich ist die Fachliteratur zum Thema. Dennoch gelingt es, mit diesem Band neue Aspekte in die Forschungsdebatte einzubringen.