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Symposium title: The potential role of tDCS in the management of Post-Acute Sequelae of SARS-COV-2 (PASC) Symposium description: The novel SARS-CoV-2 virus has infected millions of people worldwide. Post-infectious symptoms, referred to as Post-Acute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 (PASC), affect a large and growing segment of survivors, lasting months or even years without recovery. With continuous COVID-19 infections, PASC is a growing problem for public health. Therefore, effective and accessible treatment options need to be evaluated urgently. PASC symptoms are multi-systemic and can vary by the individual in clinical presentation, and its underlying pathological mechanisms remain uncharacterized. tDCS is a well-tolerated and extensively characterized noninvasive neuromodulation technique, and is effective in targeting the neuropsychiatric symptoms that define PASC (i.e., fatigue, cognitive, pain, emotional) including in other post-viral conditions. In addition, tDCS may have a larger role in the management of persisting respiratory symptoms. We will provide an overview of the theoretical basis and work to date supporting tDCS as a tool for PASC management, and present initial findings from recently completed and ongoing clinical trials. When COVID-19 first emerged, many researchers were focused on its impact on the lungs. As we have learned more about SARS-CoV-2 and resulting COVID-19, we have discovered that patients present a greater complexity in the context of the neurotrauma and the pulmonary lesions can become an aggravation of the neuroinvasion of the coronavirus and originate from cerebral injury. Recently, it has been suggested that noninvasive brain stimulation could be a valuable tool for the management of the early and postacute phase of patients with COVID-19. This session will present the results of our investigation of the High-definition transcranial direct current stimulation effects during the acute and chronic recovery phase from COVID-19. The prognostic factors and clinical predictors that contribute to greater response to treatment will be presented and directions for future research will be discussed. Research Category and Technology and Methods Clinical Research: 9. Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) Keywords: HD-tDCS, Coronavirus disease, Noninvasive brain stimulation, Long COVID-19Copyright © 2023
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Cyber-attacks are on the rise, and the advent of COVID-19 has changed work styles, leading to an increase in cyber-attacks targeting remote workers. This situation is the same in the world and in Japan, and the development of cyber security personnel and their training to face the attackers who can respond to the social situation is desired all over the world. The National Institute of Technology (KOSEN) is known not only in Japan but also in the world as the only institution of higher learning in the world where students can freely study engineering for five years from the age of 15. The technical framework of cybersecurity and the KOSEN education, which is based on the acquisition of practical skills, go hand in hand, and KOSEN is an important higher education institution that plays a part in the cybersecurity human resource development strategy in Japan. In 2015, KOSEN launched the KOSEN Security Educational Community (K-SEC) to initiate cybersecurity education for KOSEN students. This project has two objectives: one is to develop excellent cyber security personnel for qualitative improvement. The second is to develop a large number of KOSEN students who have systematically acquired security knowledge for the purpose of quantitative expansion. In 2019, a new project, Highly Advanced Cybersecurity for KOSEN (HACK), was launched within K-SEC to accelerate the achievement of the two objectives of K-SEC. HACK is a project based on a simple idea: to strengthen KOSEN faculty in order to develop strong students with practical cybersecurity skills. Participating faculty members will develop cyber range materials. The development of the cyber range will contribute to the understanding of both attacker and defender scenarios and the acquisition of advanced security knowledge and skills. In the previous paper, we reported on the results of the first year of HACK (2019). The faculty development plan, which mainly focused on cyber range development, contributed to the motivation and skill development of the faculty. The cyber range as a deliverable was also obtained. This paper reports on the outcomes of the second year (2020) of HACK activities. Within the faculty development plan, which mainly focused on cyber range development as in the first year, we used the deliverables of the first year to give lectures to KOSEN students to measure the educational effects. During the cyber range development, there were some knowledge and skills that the faculty intended to have the KOSEN students improve their skills. Therefore, the focus of the study was to see if the faculty members' intended skills would be improved when they gave lectures to the KOSEN students using the teaching materials. As it turned out, we were able to achieve this goal, and we were able to improve the skills of the KOSEN students as intended by the faculty. Furthermore, it was not only possible to control the skills to be improved by the content of the teaching materials, but also by the way the lectures were delivered. In addition, by selecting the theme of the cyber range development, we were able to achieve the intended skill improvement for the faculty. Through the implementation of HACK until the second year, we were able to identify many factors for skill improvement. In the third and fourth years of the program, we will continue to look for factors that can be used to further improve specific skills, and at the same time, we will explore the relationship with motivation, which is expected to contribute greatly to educational effectiveness. © 2022 IEEE.
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INTRODUCTION: There were no formal regulatory approvals for antivirals for the COVID-19 pandemic as of June 2020. AREAS COVERED: We compare the first regulatory approvals for remdesivir, through emergency pathways available to three of the main regulators in the world, the U.S., Japan, and the EU. We look at the data supporting the decisions and how authorities exchanged information and collaborated to speed up approvals. Based only on topline data available as of 29 April 2020, regulators granted approvals to remdesivir based on very limited but robust data and waiting for more safety and efficacy data. This included the Emergency Use Authorization in the U.S. on 1 May, the Special Approval for Emergency in Japan on 7 May, and Compassionate Use (3 April) followed by a Conditional Marketing Authorization in Europe (Opinion 25th June, Decision (3 July)). EXPERT OPINION: While the regulatory approvals were clearly based on evidence, regulators used agile methods to speed up approval, and make the first antiviral with reliable data available to patients in their constituencies in a very short time frame. More data and wider patient access are still necessary for this product, and more treatments are needed for patients affected by COVID-19.