 Good morning and welcome everybody. As for the whole world, also for our master, it has been for the second year a very difficult time. From the students of the first year of the eighth cycle until June, all the lectures were given in remote. And this applies both to the first term as well to the second term of the lectures. And also the exams were given in remote. Only for the third term, starting from September, we were able to give the lectures in presence. Moreover, until the last few weeks, it was not possible to organize the practicals at the Trieste Hospital. Nor the practical weeks at the Trent and Ferrara hospitals as we were doing in the past years. It has been to be remark, however, that our master, together with the other master organized by the ICDP and diploma courses has been one of the few training activities held at the ICDP in Trieste during this difficult year to help 2021. For the students of the second year, those which are graduating today, the clinical year was conducted at the Trent hospitals, although again with some delays and some difficulties. Still, in spite of all these difficulties, we are able to run our master in a satisfactory way. And this is also due to the enthusiastic support of the two institutions which are running the master program, the Abdul Salam International Center for theoretical physics and the Trieste University. In the persons of the ICDP director, Professor Atishlam Holkar, and the director of the Trieste University, Professor Roberto Villenalba. It is only thanks to the support of the staff at all levels of the ICDP offices, of the university offices, of the university department of physics that we have been able to cope with the many bureaucratic difficulties both at the university and the ICDP as well with the continuing serious problems due to COVID. Today, with the degree award ceremony, we are closing the seventh cycle 2020-2021 of the joint master in medical physics, graduating 24 new students. Last year, for the 2020-2021 cycle, we added to the list of countries represented in the master, Albania, India, Kyrgyzstan, Namibia and Suriname. For the next cycle, the 2022-2023, we are adding Angola, Bahamas, Congo, Dominican Republic, Libya, Syria and Tunisia. Including next cycle, the total number of countries represented in the master will be 70, out of which 29 countries are from Africa and the total number of students will be 178, out of which exactly 50% 89 are from Africa and 53 are females. It is remarkable to stress that the number of students is steadily increasing. From the 13 students of the first two cycles to the 24 students of the seventh and eighth cycle, we will jump to 32 for the next cycle. The master is fully organized by the two institutions by the ICDP and the university. The ICDP director, Prof. Atish Dabholkar, cannot be present, but he will address the master in remote. Prof. Dabholkar, please. Hello? Hello? Yes? Okay. Can you hear me? Anybody? I will hear you. Okay. My apology. I'm connecting from and is not. So we are able to conduct this program. So first of all, I would like to congratulate all of you. So I'm connecting from a lobby, so please forgive if there is some noise. So first of all, I would like to congratulate all those who are graduating this year. And I'm really proud of this particular program. ICDP is very, because I think it's a wonderful of collaboration between ICDA and Italy through the CS3ST science system, especially university of CS3ST and the local hospitals to achieve something that in the sum of its power, because neither of us can do what we are able to. And I'm very happy to inform you that coming year, the 50% per states of IAA to this program, so we're actually close to 1 billion euros fellowships for students, which is real opinion of the success of this, if the members voting with their money, because they're a program which will be used. And this year we have people from so far in fact in this book, which is 94 medical physicists from something like 60 countries, and about 32% have been female. And this year I think you have, I think the list of countries is really long, in fact, I don't want to read it, but really, if I just look at the list of countries, Ethiopia, Uzbekistan, Algeria, it's really quite impressive that ICDP reaches out to the whole world in this manner, together with our partners, the University of CS3ST and IAA. I'm also very happy to welcome Dr. Hua Liu, who is the Deputy Director General and Head of the Department of Technical Cooperation at IAA, who is joining in remote. And also, his Excellency Rashaun Watson, the first Secretary of the Permanent Mission of Jamaica to the United Nations and other international organizations in Jamaica. In my absence, Professor Josh Thompson will represent ICDP. He has been the head of programs at ICDP and he has really seen this program flourish and he has contributed to the growth and success of this program. So, greetings to all of you from the World Expo in Dubai. In fact, yesterday I had an opportunity to present, represent and showcase at the World Expo the contributions of ICDP to global science. And I took this opportunity to emphasize, I'm particularly proud, we are particularly proud of our educational programs in various masters and PhD programs that we offer, and in particular the medical physics program, which has been such an important success. Finally, I would like to just add that I wish, first of all, I wish all the students a very successful new beginning to their new careers. I also would like to let you know that we are working towards creating a community of students so that you continue your, you know, ICDP, your connection with this ICDP to their family. And a sort of ICDP network, which can help new incoming students to also learn from their seniors and Professor Kisele, who is the diploma coordinator, he is working on this. We are trying to put this together. So, I hope you will remain connected to ICDP and I wish you all the best. So, my warm congratulations to all of you. And my warm congratulations also to all those who have made this program a great success. I mean, I know Luchiano, Renata and the Renato, but everybody else who has worked very hard to make it a success. So, all the best. Well, thank you, Apis. The students, thank you again, Apis. The students of our advanced master in medical physics are students of the Trieste University. The Trieste University represented here today by Professor Walter Cergo, deputy rector of the Trieste University. Professor Cergo, please. As you like. Good morning. While preparing some words for the meeting today, I browse through the list of countries represented that I think the only possible place I've been with more countries represented in here has been at United Nations in New York. So, congratulations for being such a widespread community. It is a success story, definitely. It is a success story on your side for the information that you got, the education you received, the experiences in the hospital. So, it's a case where territory, as we call it, and institutions work together in a very successful way. The success, though, relies heavily on you or more directly to your countries. If the International Center for Theoretical Physics could be established here, it was, it has been largely because of the efforts of non-aligned countries, third world countries. I'm not even giving the name to this hall, Professor Boone, which worked a lot for us. And at the time we are talking about something like 60 years ago, there were crossing vetoes between the United States and Russia. And the only cause that brought the United Center here is due to your countries largely, to third world countries, to non-aligned countries. So, after 60 years, you are basically building up of the efforts of your governments, the efforts that were done by your governments some 60 years ago. So, not only for other reasons, we should thank you for what your countries made possible. You also know that one of the aims of the master is to build scientists so that they can go back to their countries. So, the best wishes, and I will not take the stage for much longer, the best wishes that we have for all of you is to go back to your countries, grow up with your countries, but keep in touch among your fellow students and with the other institutions who made this possible, the International Center for Theoretical Physics and the University of Trieste. Thank you. Thank you, Professor Servo. The third pillar of our master is the International Atomic Energy Agency. From the scientific viewpoint, they gave us an invaluable support in designing the master, providing teaching material and assisting in updating the master program, and they continue to do so. But there is another equally important aspect of the cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency. It is the assistance of the TC, the technical cooperation of the agency. Our master has received a few fellowships and financial support from several various organizations. However, it is the International Atomic Energy Agency that contributes most of the fellowships for the master students. Just to give an example, 17 out of the 24 students of the present eight cycle had received an agency fellowship and this number will jump to 26 out of 32 for the next cycle. Without the cooperation of the International Atomic Energy Agency in terms of fellowships, the master could not continue. We are convinced that the agency considers our master program a very important component of its programs in the area of technical cooperation. The agency is represented today by Mr. Hualiu, deputy director general of the agency and head of the department of technical cooperation. You will speak in remote. Mr. Liu, please. Thank you. Thank you very much. Good morning. Prof. Bertolci, Prof. Dabhoka, Prof. Sago, good morning and dear colleagues, fellows and graduates. On behalf of International Atomic Energy Agency, it is my great pleasure to draw you today as you celebrate your graduation from the master of advanced studies in medical physics, organized by the ICTP and the University of Trieste and co-sponsored by the IAEA. I congratulate you all on completing this two years program particularly in such challenging time and on your graduation today. You have shown commitment, determination and the resilience of all qualities which will serve you well in the future. I extended my sincere thanks to the ICTP and the University of Trieste for providing their expertise and facilities and for hosting and organizing this important program. Special thanks go to Prof. Bertolci, Prof. Padawani and Prof. Lango for their enthusiasm and dedication to the success of this program every year. Ladies and gentlemen, the IAEA through its various programs and in particular through the technical cooperation program contribute to improving the health and the perspective of millions of people by making nuclear science and technology available in health care, food and agriculture, industry and many other sectors. In the area of health, IAEA assistance is helping to improve the availability of radiotherapy and nuclear medicine. We provided education and training for health professionals and supply equipment for diagnosis and treatment. In fact, human health is one of the top three priority areas of the TC program. The program focus strongly on the development of human resources. Properly trained staff are the key asset in any medical setting. However, it takes a long time to build human capacity. In your case, you have dedicated two years to your training. In other specialties such as nuclear medicine and the radiation oncology, it can take at least four years. Training and the capacity development requires a big investment, but it's worth it. It's essential in ensuring access to medical diagnosis and treatment and to improving human well-being. I would like to highlight three points today. First of all, when we take into account your graduation today, more than 120 students from some 60 countries have completed their master of advanced study in medical phases program over the past six years. The IAEA is a program to have support more than 80 of these students. I'm confident that each of you will apply the knowledge you have gained in your home country and that you will use your new skills to enhance the quality of medical physics in different medical practice. You will contribute not only to better diagnosis and the treatment of patients, but also to patient safety. Many, many people will count on your skills to ensure that they receive the best treatment when they undergo diagnosis of medical procedure that involve the use of ionizing radiation. Secondly, during your time training together, you have created a valuable network of peers and with teaching and training teams both in the hospitals and at the ICTP. You have established important networks for professional collaboration and you have made friends. You now have a personal connection with people working your profession around the world. I'm sure that your pace will continue to close in the future. Make sure that you maintain your professional network and friendship. There will be great source to support you in the future. The third and final points that I would like to make is graduation isn't end of the story. All of us at the IAEA look forward to hearing from you and learning about your professional progress in your home country. Please stay in touch with us and do not hesitate to seek support from relevant IAEA staff when you need it. I also would like to let you know next year IAEA will take more actions through TC program to assist the member states to enhance their capabilities on radiation medicine against cancer. I'm sure you know your graduation is in time. It's time for all of you to make contribution to your country. I wish you all the best today and your future careers and wish you a safety journey back home. Once again, congratulations on your achievement today and thank you very much. Thank you Mr. New. As we did last year, also this year we will recognize the best student of the cycle. And this year it will be a student from Jamaica. We are honored by a contribution of Mr. Rashon Watson, the first secretary of the permanent mission of Jamaica to the United Nations and other international organizations in Geneva. He will speak also in remote. Mr. Watson, please. So then I will continue saying that for the seventh cycle then the best student will be Anthony Scott from Jamaica and he had received the best average marks in the first year exams. Anthony. Good morning everyone seated here. Members of the panel, invited guests. Those that are viewing remotely. My fellow graduates. It's indeed a pleasure to be standing here in front of you in this capacity and I'm very humble. Our cycle was not an easy one. We were in COVID and the difficulties that was associated with COVID made it quite difficult for us. However, we are here. We have overcome and I will start to salute you and congratulate you first of all. While preparing for today, everyone was asking Anthony what will you talk about. That question was on my mind. I'm not much of a speaker. However, there are just a few words that I would like to share with my fellow graduates. First of all, I must declare that I'm a practicing Christian and I would not be here if it wasn't for God. So I have to declare that. Now to my graduates, my fellow graduates. As you see, I have a scarf here representing my country, Jamaica. I consider myself as an ambassador of Jamaica in regards to medical physics. Likewise, all of you seated here are ambassadors even from the first year. Now as ambassadors, we have a task as representatives of our country in medical physics. We are given the responsibility to carry the knowledge that we have gained here to the expertise, the experience that we have gained. Back to our countries. But what will you do with this knowledge? Now it would be expected that when we return, that we should be experts. This might be something that persons will think. And we should know everything. However, don't be afraid to say that you don't know something. But what I encourage you to do is to investigate, be curious, search. Find out what is, find out the unknown, find a solution for that unknown. Have an investigative mind. Be very curious. Test theories do a lot of general research on various topics and that are applicable to your craft. When you have gained that knowledge, share what you have learned so as to develop the practice of medical physics in your institution. You could also do publishing, have publications. So the larger medical physics environment can benefit from such. And I plan to be very short today, Professor Longo. So I will end quickly. Now, I was privileged to attend a seminar that was based on risk assessment for patients. Risk assessment, general risk assessment in radiotherapy by the IAEA. And it was a full week of different topics. But the take home message that I got, which you can see by the picture there is that patient safety starts with me. That was a take home message for me. And I want that to be the take home message for you from this master's program. To be a motivation in whatever tax that we have to undertake. We should be so motivated to do it properly because patient safety begins with us. If we have this as the foundation of our jobs, then I know that will do well in our respective fields in our respective countries. So, my fellow graduates, go on, be great, explore, be curious. But at the end of the talk, ensure that whatever you do, the patient is the one that benefits. Thank you all for this. Thank you very much, Anthony. I understand we are now connected with Mr Watson. Mr Watson, please. Thank you very much for giving me the floor, Professor. I hope I'm audible. Am I audible? Yes, sir. All right. Thank you very much. I wish to deliver very brief remarks on behalf of our Excellency, Ambassador Sherry K. Spencer, permanent representative of Jamaica to Geneva and other international organizations in Geneva. Unfortunately, Ambassador is not able to join us due to competing priorities. But however, we would have liked to have been here. The mission is grateful for the invitation to participate. And we are also delighted that for those two programs, two Jamaicans were able to participate and to extend commendations to both Mr Brian Morris and to Mr Anthony Scott for participating in this program and for successfully completing. Mr Scott, a while ago in his remarks, would have aptly indicated that all graduates today serve as ambassadors for their country. And we are indeed proud that Mr Scott has emerged as one of the best students for this program. We just want to extend commendations to the IAEA and the university for affording this opportunity to all the participants and to all graduates, giving them the opportunity to not only serve as ambassadors for their country but an opportunity to strengthen their technical knowledge and competence to be able to contribute to the overall development of their country. With these few words, we just like to also extend commendations to all graduates and encourage you to go forth and use the knowledge and experience gain to contribute to the national development of your country. I thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you Mr Watson. Now having completed seven cycles of our master, we are starting collecting from those who graduated, evidences, reports and opinions concerning the impact of the master especially in the less advanced countries. One of the former students, Mr Zunaki Zukari from Tanzania will comment in remote about his experience at the MNP. Zunaki please. Good morning everybody. Professor Vesina Sosi, Professor Luciano Bertocchi, Professor Longo, Professor Padovani, distinguished guests, distinguished lecturers of ICTP, Traste University, dear graduates of advanced masters of medical physics, Zoom and live stream followers in YouTube and other social media worldwide. Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. It is with Humble and HANA and distinctly privileged to get this opportunity as MNP alumni. I want to use this opportunity first to congratulate graduates for your successful studies. Then I would like to request your attention for a few minutes especially for graduates to share with you my experience in the field of medical physics. My speech will cover with some introduction of my geographical location. As you are informed, I was a student at Traste University, graduated in MNP program. Now I am working at Ocean Road Cancer Institute which is in Tanzania, the Ray Salam Tanzania in East Africa. The status of medical physics and radiotherapy services in the country is that we have six qualified medical physicists and two of them were graduated in Traste University under ICTP and Traste University MNP program. We have other eight trainees which we are training them and some of them were employed and we are trying to train them to become a medical physicist. In Tanzania there are four radiotherapy centers and the Ocean Road Cancer Institute is one of them and the biggest and the oldest one. At Ocean Road Cancer Institute we have some facilities like two cobalt 60, two linear accelerators, high dose rate brach therapy, nuclear medicine department and other facilities. Normally we are treating around 60 patients per machine I mean linear accelerator and around 70 patients in cobalt 60 and 15 patients in high dose rate brach therapy. We have a patient for both curative and palliative treatment. Our role as a medical physicist at Ocean Road Cancer Institute were extracted from the vision of the institute. In this regard I would like to share with my colleagues who are graduates today that when you go back in your countries please you have to know the vision of your hospitals they extracted the roles from there but mainly the roles are three doing clinical works, academic works and research. In spite of our minority in the country as a medical physicist I am saying we are six of them but we do some of the activities like celebrating in the international day of medical physicist in order to create awareness in the country. When you go back as a physicist you will be facing some of the responsibilities I will mention a few of them and I am sure you are aware of them. The country and hospitals from your countries they will depend on you to prepare some technical specification of imaging and the therapy equipment for your hospitals doing acceptance testing and commissioning of the equipment routine quality control of the equipment and those measurements preparation of treatment planning 3D conformment treatment planning Ayamurati and so on and doing some activities like patient monitoring and in vivo dosimetry system. In our country we are also doing some academic activities which is teaching students from university Muhimbili University of Health and Ayurvedic Sciences which is in collaboration with the Ocean Road Cancer Institute. We are teaching two courses Battle of Science in Radiotherapy Technology and Master in Medical Radiation Oncology We are teaching different courses related in medical physics and radiotherapy in general. We have also convinced the university to introduce some of the courses in order to have awareness for the students and the graduate students who completed the degree of physics such that they will become medical physics in future. We conduct and we supervise some researchers for students and also when you graduate you expected to bring some innovation to your countries like what I did I introduced idea of treating some of the passion to progress using interoperative radiotherapy and the aim or the objective or the concept note were to provide the awareness and inspiration among the stakeholders of non-communicable disease and the public at large concerning new approaches to combating breast cancer and to explore the necessary infrastructure required for setting up interoperative radiotherapy in the country and to explain the advantages of IRT over conventional radiotherapy. So this also dear graduates you can do similar thing but I have to give you the take home message and my take home message will be the quote from the father of Tanzanian nation Wallim Julius Kambaragi nire he said those and I wanted to quote those who received this privilege therefore have a duty to repay the sacrifice which others have made they are like the man who has been given all the food available in starving village in order that he might have strength to bring suppliers back from a distant place this was a quotation of Wallim Julius Kambaragi nire what does it mean mean that you have completed your masters you expected to go back home and help your society I have confidence to tell you that you graduates you have the knowledge you have sufficient knowledge and skills that you require in order to provide a greater contribution in the field of medical physics in your countries you have been given guidelines in your work such as IAA documents AAPM documents and other documents please use them to perform your responsibilities when you go back home you may be required to provide advice from something new to you do not hesitate to ask to seek advice from the senior medical physicists IAA, ICTP and the team of the host hospitals of Italy and other countries I encourage you to return to your countries to help your people cancer is increasing with high rate among the other non-communicable diseases medical physicists has important role in improving diagnosis and treatment of cancer your graduation ceremony of today should always remind you that Italian association of medical physicists who has provided you knowledge in the class and hands-on practicals in the hospitals IAA and ICTP fellowships and Trieste University have put responsibilities on your shoulder you should deliver to your family I hope you will use the knowledge and skills you have acquired for developing medical physics and improving cancer care in your country thank you for attention thank you very much Yuma and the international atomic energy agency the person who is our scientific counterpart is Mrs. Debby van der Merve from the department of nuclear sciences and application she is also one of our external advisors of master Debby will speak in presence thank you Lucione we didn't coordinate this however I'm not sure I will be saying anything that's too much new compared to the previous speakers but professor Debalka fair go distinguished guests Mr. Watson and students hello to you this is your day and I'm very happy to be able to share it with you I thought it might be quite interesting to share with you a little bit of the global picture and perhaps a little bit of the history so 16% of the world population is living in high income countries however 67% of medical physicists are living in high income countries and most of you students are from low and middle income countries and of those medical physicists worldwide 20% are declared to be female so if I listen to what has been set up until now it's clear that this program is doing a lot to address this gap in the world and so far has shown a great amount of success so in terms of the technical of a facade at the agency and the the advisor on the program now an external advisor with previously working for the agency and more than 10 years ago started an inter-regional project in an attempt to try and promote medical physics and from this inter-regional project grew several guidelines documents and in fact this program so most of you probably know that there's still quite a big lack of recognition of medical physics and health professional worldwide but what is good to see is that there has been an increase in interest in many countries to create their own education and training program so these are all small steps but they go a long way to addressing all of these problems I guess our message is pretty much the same as expressed Mr. Liu and of the other speakers to you as students first of all please go home second of all please work in a hospital this is what you have been trying to do in this program some of you will go home to a hospital possibly with no equipment however you definitely were chosen from the agency perspective because we are aware of radiation therapy or nuclear medicine or radiology facilities being established in your country and therefore there is definitely a role for you to play you know the students you are behind you physically because you probably met here on this campus I hope you do keep in touch with each other a global community becomes your family and in order for us to address the issue of professional recognition please take the lead in your various environments and make sure that you act professionally at all times because this is how you will get the recognition clearly there are a lot of partners to thank here the university, the ICTP the italian medical physics society eFOMP, IOMP many of my colleagues at the agency that I really need to highlight the fantastic role played by the clinical medical physicists in the hospitals this is not an easy task and as you well know they have a lot of work to do and it is not that easy to take on the students to train professionally as well as to guide you through your research in the room we are sitting the past two days on the wall it's a quote by Einstein that says only a laugh for others is a laugh worthwhile so you have started out on a profession now where the patient comes first so they come before yourself and it's an amazing profession and as a result it's very rewarding I hope that you find it that way and your recognition and our certification will improve the more we are seen to play an active role in exactly that taking care of the patient and as Anthony said and Juma always be aware of what you do not know because if you are aware if you do not know of what you do not know then you are definitely on your way denying everything so welcome to the profession and I wish you all the best of luck in your future career thank you very much thank you baby at the the area of medical physics there are a number of international organizations the one that covers the whole world is IOMP the International Organization of Medical month professor has been president of IOMP and he is also one of the organizers of the ICTP bayenne college medical field o wa'rawa extenr, adva Anyways, ofsore. Slaviks please. Thank you, Professor Bel toke. First of the go ahead, Professor Saychuk. First of the ryu, first of the pa DuVani, first of the long way, and distinguished guests. It is a privilege to be related to this unique master course and I would like to address the graduates. Dear graduates, congratulations with your very successful completion this unique master programming to yesterday. Yesterday we all examined and we were very happy with your excellent achievements. You have made an incredible progress, especially in such difficult time for all the world. In my position, I am following the discussions in the international community of our profession, and for us is clear that in front of all scientists stay very important and challenging years. After this pandemic period, there will be significant changes in many scientific fields, but especially in those close to medicine. Our profession is directly related to medicine and will be affected by those changes. But do not forget that physics is philosophy, and always look at the profession with a broad perspective. Always collaborate with your medical colleagues, and you can see that the interface between physics and medicine can deliver very interesting discoveries. Last but not least, always remember your fantastic teachers from the Italian Medical Physics Association. And of course from the ICTP and the University of Trieste. On behalf of the International Organization for Medical Physics and the International Union for Physical and Engineering Sciences in Medicine, I wish you lots of success and welcome in our profession. All the best. Thank you, Slavic. In addition to UNP, another important international body is IFOM, the European Federation of Organizations for Medical Physics. IFOM is represented today by Dr. Paddy Gilligan, IFOM president. He will also speak in remote. Dr. Gilligan, please. Can you hear me? Yes. Very good. So it's hard. I don't know who that person, Dr. Scott or Mr. Scott, who was the student who said he wasn't a great speaker. I think he's a very good speaker and it's very hard to follow on from such wonderful speeches. It's an honor and a privilege for me on behalf of the European Federation of Organizations for Medical Physics to attend the seventh graduation cycle of the Masters of Medical Physics program from the ICTP and Trieste. We're so impressed that this program managed to run and grow and reflect this diversity in these times of the pandemic. And we're sure that the physicists here, the message has been said over and over again, will bring their skills back to their clinics and hospitals to help the challenges in their health services in the next few years. And particularly we anticipate a very, you know, great need for medical physics support in the post pandemic area, creating access to treatments and diagnosed particularly for the non communicable diseases and the challenges that you face, you know, in particularly in the low and income countries will be even more uphill. But I think based on the charisma and the enthusiasm and the high level of the students, I have no doubt that you will be able for these challenges. You know, the program represents one of the challenges of medical physics that we have for even on a European level. And that's to define our training requirements in a harmonized manner that meets our patients and staff needs. And this is the basis for defining our identity as medical physicists and the contributions we make from Tanzania to Thailand to, you know, they those those contributions are the same and I think Debbie Vander Mura, you know, really expressed what these needs are. And so, you know, we have been trying in EFOMP to set up mutual recognition of our national registration schemes. And I know some of the countries here are members of the, you know, Albanian place like this are members of EFOMP national member organizations we encourage you encourage you to set up national registration schemes. And likewise outside the European region, and they will ultimately benefit your training and standards. We're aware of the standards of teaching and the students and projects from this program are very high and I had the privilege of being involved in some of the modules in 2019. And we hope that you can use your skills and knowledge to progress medical physics for patients and staff benefits. We learn from you just as much as you can learn from us. And, you know, we should be always available as a network resource. And if you ever feel need to contact EFOMP so we're encouraging you to set up participate in your national regional medical physics organizations if they don't exist and become a voice and I can hear very strong voices today. And one of these pillars of the three pillars of EFOMP are to communicate, integrate and educate. And I think that you can do that through your own region. We just, we have been working on defining our core curriculums. And we presume that these, you know, with the ENM and Astro and people like this. And this is something we hope that these updates will be useful to setting up the master's program in future years. 2021 comes to an end. We look forward to 2022. And this is a special year for Trieste and Dublin because 22 is the centenary of the Irish Nobel Prize winning author James Joyce's Ulysses, which was written in Trieste about the city of Dublin. And 22 is also the date of the European Medical Physics Congress in Dublin in August. And we hope that you will be able to submit your abstracts to the Congress, which we can look forward to seeing you face to face in 2022. And we also hope that we, some of us may be able to return to feel the border in Trieste. And we would just like to, on behalf of EFOMP, congratulate you. You are the future of medical physics. You know, I was particularly pleased to see the award-winning student from Jamaica because I had spent some time down there teaching MRI in the University of West Indus, Zimona. So I think that we have a great, you know, based on the caliber and the success of this program and anything EFOMP can do to contribute to and act as a resource to this program. We would like to do it. And so just congratulations and onwards and upwards. So with that, I'll hand over to the next speech. So I just say congratulations. Thank you, Dr. Gilligan. There is one more organization of medical physics, the Italian Association Italiana Physics America. Renato Padavani will later illustrate the importance of the cooperation of the Italian hospitals, which are hosting our students for the second clinical year. On behalf of the president of EFOMP, Dr. Cavedon, EFOMP is represented here today by Dr. Annalisa Triani, who is the head of the medical physics group of the train hospital. I am also proud to add that Annalisa was one of my best students at the Trieste University. Annalisa. Good morning and thank you for inviting me to speak on behalf of the president of our Italian Association, Dr. Carlo Cavedon. He really is sorry and apologizes for not being able to be here and asked me to bring you his regards. Our association has always paid great attention to the education of medical physicists. And in fact, it has a school, an advanced school on advanced studies of medical physics, which provides all the courses to the medical physics community in Italy. And there are two key points of our program, which are the focus on young medical physicists and the internationalization of our scope. And these reasons, the collaborations with the ICTP and the University of Trieste for this master is considered to be very important and a strategic activity to which the Italian associations will pay more attention and invest more energies in the future. To this extent, next year, in order to strengthen the collaboration and the organization of our two groups with the idea of reciprocal support and exchange. And also, the Italian Association is keen to participate and to collaborate in the process of facilitating, as was explained by Dr. Gilligan before me, in the recognition of the medical physicists among different countries, which can provide another way to level of education. And I would like to conclude representing the association but also as your former teacher joining the wishes that were given to you previously by the previous speakers and also saying let's the fun begin because this is only the first step. I wish you could continue in this profession in your own countries and with dedication and commitment but overall with enthusiasm and joy. So congratulation to you all. Thank you very much. In the last few years, we have added to the formal graduation ceremony in advanced scientific lecture. This year, the lecture will be given by Professor Wesna Sossi from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. Professor Sossi belongs to the Vancouver University but she comes from the Trieste area and she was graduated from the physics department of our university. She will lecture in remote in the middle of her night on a very interesting subject, Pelsi TMIRI applications, opportunities and challenges. Professor Sossi, please. Thank you very much for inviting me to give this lecture distinct pleasure and an honor to be here. But let me start with first of all congratulating all of the graduates and congratulating the program. This is an achievement and hopefully the years to come are going to be full of excitement for all of you. So let me try to share the screen here. Can you see it in the slideshow now? Yeah, we see it. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you. So my current field of research and work is medical imaging and in particular neuroimaging. So in this talk, I would like to share some excitement about this discipline and which is very, very interdisciplinary. So I will be briefly talking about some technical development, some novel applications and future opportunities and challenges. But I would like to put all of this in the context of the needs that medical imaging can address. There are many. We need to understand health and disease better. We need to be able to diagnose disease better so as to better stratify patients and direct treatment properly. We need to find new treatment for diseases. We need to determine the efficacy of treatment and also we need to make imaging instrumentation much more widely available to many more countries. And I will be drawing examples from oncology and brain function in health and illness. So my first point is this disease is very complex. If we look at cancer, for example, there are many ways in which cancer cells survive, they proliferate. For example, they can evade growth suppressors. They have proliferative signaling. They have very, very efficient invasion mechanisms. They resist cell death and they really change the microenvironment around them in a way that allows them to survive and proliferate very well. Now, if we talk about brain, compared to the whole body, brain is a very small organ, approximately 1.3 kg. If you compare that to a 70 kg person, it's a very small fraction, but it contains 100 billion neurons. And it uses 20% of body's energy and of those 20%, 80% are used just for housekeeping purposes. So whenever you don't do anything, whenever you don't think about anything, the brain still uses 80% of the energy. Now brain signals in two main ways. There's electrical propagation of signals and there's chemical propagation of signals. And this propagation happens to these axons which spread throughout the entire brain. And now this very fuzzy picture is there to just illustrate that many regions of the brain have very specific tasks. And in understanding this, the circuit behavior of the brain is becoming increasingly more apparent and more relevant, and this will become important later on. So we hear a lot about cancer, but the impact of brain illness is very, very great. And indeed now it's considered to be approximately 40% of the global burden of disease. Part of the reason is the fact that brain illness is not killing people very soon, people survive. People get brain illness when they're young and that accompanies them through later on in life. So there's many years of decreased quality of life, decreased productivity. And currently there's very, very few disease modifying treatments. And part of the reason is that disease in the brain quite often starts a lot earlier than when clinical symptoms occur. This is an example from Alzheimer's disease. And if we use this time zero, the time when you start having some clinical symptoms, early mild cognitive impairment. So cognitive performance here you see the green line just starts to become abnormal 10 to 15 years prior to that. You already see abnormalities in the brain. You see accumulation of amyloid beta and also you see abnormality in glucose utilization. So by the time people have clinical symptoms, many, many systems have been affected. So really trying to cure a system that has failed in many different ways. So treatment becomes very complex. Now the key points that I wanted to make is the disease related alterations are many. They are complex. They can be very, very variable in many different tumor types and many different type of dementia. And they may start much, much earlier than clinical symptoms. Now this is a slide that I always like to bring up because even after all of these years of being imaging is still marvel at the power of imaging. This is the way in which we could be looking at the brain or the body if we didn't have imaging. Now we can substitute this with an instrument and you can put a subject in an instrument and a subject just undergoes a scan. And you get so much information from them. From that you can get information on structure and in nuclear medicine you all know that you can get different types of information depending on the tracer you use. So you don't just see the body or the brain. You can actually also look how the brain functions or how it malfunctions depending on disease. So imaging is a very complex science. First of all we need to identify the target that we want to study and in nuclear medicine that is done by tracers. We need to be able to quantify the images to assign numbers to diseases or disease progression. We need to be able to detect radiation with high sensitivity. We need to use multi modalities to better understand disease and we need to apply advanced analysis methods. So very briefly go through these points. So again molecular imaging is radiation. It's a combination of the radiation detection device that's agnostic really of what it is looking at. It just detects radiation. What really gives you specificity is the radio tracer that allows you to identify the target. And for example the importance of selecting radio tracers carefully can be given here. This is just one example that looks looked at the effect of the or the success of the treatment on osteosomatostasis from prostate cancer. So these are pre-treatment scans or post-treatment scans. If you just look at the post scan you don't see any difference. If you look at the FDG pad you really don't see much difference at all. But if you use acetate which is involved in lipid synthesis which again is associated with sustaining proliferative signaling you see that the treatment was effective. So very important to select the tracer properly. And that example is understanding whether a tumor is hypoxic or not because that again influences treatment. And in this particular case you have a combination of FDG and FMISA which is a hypoxia treatment. And by combining information from those two you can better guide radiation dose escalation. So this is a selection of tracer but it's also important how we analyze the data. You probably have heard about SUVs which essentially just look at the concentration of the tracer in a particular region. And that is a very common way of analyzing the data. But if you go further and you look at the tracer distribution over time you can determine uptake rate constants which give you more detailed information on what is happening. And here is an example whereby looking SUVs you could distinguish the severity of primary tumor in two different patient populations M0 and M1 M0 are patients without metastasis M1 were patients with metastasis. So in terms of primary tumors SUV gave you enough information. But when it came to be able to distinguish metastasis you see that with SUVs you could not distinguish metastasis but by applying this more refined type of analysis you could distinguish metastasis in those patients that had them. So no more radiation no different instrumentation just different way of analyzing the data. Now I'm sure you have heard about theronostics which is the combination of radionuclide imaging and radionuclide therapy. And I think that one area that is becoming increasingly more relevant is alpha embitter therapy. And I think that most of you must have seen this picture of a patient with primary prostate cancer which when treated with actinium had quite significant remission. So this is a very very important area of research. But the problem with alpha emitters is they are very very damaging and this is what you want when it comes to cancerous tissue. But this is not what you want when you are looking at healthy tissue. So you really have to confirm the presence of a target with molecular imaging. This is where the imaging component comes into play. And then you have to be able to assess the dose that you need to deliver. And in order to be able to do that you really need to do precise and accurate estimate of tracer concentration. So another very important area that is gaining a lot of interest and importance right now. Let me switch now to the importance of being able to detect radiation with high sensitivity. Now we can use that in two main ways either to improve image quality and detect smaller alterations or by giving lower dose. And that's important if you want to use molecular imaging for screening or if you want to be able to image more populations for example children. And also it has an impact on cost and affordability because you need less tracer to be used for images. So now there's two components to increasing sensitivity. One is actually physical component where you just design better hardware, more efficient hardware or you can also use software. For example better imagery construction or denoising algorithms. Now hardware you may have heard or you probably did hear about total body PET. And this is simply an extension of PET scanners that are extended to cover the entire body. And by doing that you're increasing your detection solid angle. And the important parameter here if we're looking at sensitivity in this particular units, which is a measure of how much radiation detect given a certain amount of radiation. Traditional scanners have 10 to 15 kilo counts for mega back rolls. This whole body scanners of which too are at the highest or the most advanced stage of development explorer and a pen pet explorer. From 10 to 15 you go to 174 or 54 and 83 so many fold increase in sensitivity. What can you do with this increase in sensitivity? Here's an example where you're looking at how FTG is distributed in the body as soon as injected. These are 100 millisecond long image frames so exquisite temporal resolution. Lower dose typically for an FTG you inject 300 mega back rolls. This is an image it was obtained with 18.5 mega back rolls of FTG. And this is an image it was acquired up to three plus hours after injection exquisite images. Kinetic analysis again here it being able to image the entire body at the same time it means you can combine dynamic information from different parts of the body. And you can apply those more advanced imaging analysis algorithms that I was showing you before. And here is an example of time activity curves ie how the tracer changes over time and what I want to show you here. This is this image here we're looking at blood in different pulse and these are seconds. So you can really follow the tracer distribution over time in a very very fine detail. And this is just a mind blowing picture here you can actually see the heartbeat. So this is activities high enough that your your frames can be short enough that you can detect heartbeat. So absolutely exciting. Now how else can you use this information about time course of the tracer. This is an example that was using that information to assess tumor heterogeneity, which is a prognostic biomarker for breast cancer. So looking at time activity curves and using cluster analysis. This authors were able to separate three different time courses of of of associated with single voxels in the tumor region. And by doing this they were able to determine heterogeneity, which again was able to inform a breast cancer prognosis. Another very quick example is denoising this is again a completely software approach. These are FDG images of one many time resolution. This is just one of the denoising algorithms. I'll briefly go through them. You see the raw image you see the blurred image and you see denoised image again just software to see how much better and clearer that is. So this is looking at the images. But now for looking at time activity curve the raw data are in blue. The red data are just a smooth and derived from the smooth images and the green is derived from denoised images again just software. So this is quite impressive. Now multi modality switching topic to multi modalities were all familiar with PET CT CT is often just used for localization. But again, if we combine multi modality with more advanced imaging techniques, and you may have heard of radio mix, where one looks at the texture and shapes in addition to just magnitude of uptake. So, for example, this particular study was combining PET and CT images by properly segmenting them, applying all of these advanced radiomic analysis, combining them in some ways. And just by doing this, one was able to obtain better certification amongst patients with specific tumor types. So then combining modalities is not important just in terms of hardware, not just localization, but also to enable more advanced algorithms which help you in diagnostic. Now the new kid on the block is pet MR and we do have one of those and the potential of this is just being explored. So this is an example from cancer. A tumor does affect vasculature as well and MRI is very good at determine vascular abnormalities. And here's an example where if you combine pet MR in the context of prostate cancer imaging. Again, you can do better staging and there's many of such examples. Now, two quick examples from brain imaging, multi modality derived disease identification, and also increasing understanding of imaging techniques. Now this current understanding that there are disease that disease specific pathological changes occur within specific brain structure and functional networks. And that these these pathological changes are mediated by neurochemical effects such as abnormal protein aggregation inflammation and impaired cellular energetics and abnormal neurotransmission. And this comes comes back to the first slide that I've shown you where the circuit behavior of the brain is becoming increasingly more understood and its relevance to disease also more understood. So using this hypothesis, this was a study that was trying to distinguish four different types of dementia. Why is that important? Because different type of dementia have different progression courses and also they need to be symptomatically treated differently. So this was Alzheimer's disease behavior of variant from the temporal dementia, semantic dementia and progressive non-fluent of Asia. So it is known that these different types of dementia really are associated with distinct brain networks. So what this study has done, they've combined FDG with voxel based morphometry as well as with degree centrality, which is a network based analysis. And they use the four regions that are specific to each dementia as seeds in that analysis. So when then the results were combined with a multivariate pattern classification support vector machine algorithms and it turned out that in all cases the combination of the three was best able to identify and separate each type of dementia from the other again clinically very relevant. Now we use imaging techniques and molecular imaging is quite understandable or it's understandable to a large degree because we do design the tracer, which binds to a particular target. But there's still a lot of not understood in MRI, in particular resting state MRI, resting state functional MRI, which you just look at brain connectivity during rest is not completely understood. What that really tells you is which regions of the brain work together during rest. And the importance of it is that there are different patterns that are associated with different diseases. And as I said earlier, 80% of the energy for the brain is just used as at rest. So it's principle very powerful technique. But what does do the analysis methods mean? One can do a seed based analysis. One can do an independent component analysis. One can just look at amplitude of low frequency fluctuation. These are all different ways of looking at this data. So this particular study has done a resting state together with an FDG pet. Now we know that FDG pet to a large extent reflect metabolism. There are some more complex interpretation there as well, but this is to a large extent known, not completely, but to a large extent. So what this study has done has looked at the correlation between different analysis method of resting state and FDG pet. And very interestingly, the correlation between the pet measure and different analysis method of resting state MRI. It's dependent on the, so first of all, it depends, it varies, but secondly, it also depends on which area of the brain you're looking at. Just as an example, in the visual cortex, there is a very strong correlation between pet and regional homogeneity and also with degree centrality. And then the last one I can see on my screen because it's hiding behind the pictures. But the point here is, if you just look at this table, you see again that there's a very different degree of correlation. So hopefully by combining such techniques, we'll be able to understand the imaging modalities better. So coming closer to the conclusion, there's the many challenges, but again, the glass can be half full or half empty. Every challenge provides an opportunity. There's continuous development in tracers and trace availability. Tracers are so important as I hope I've shown you during this talk because it allows you to study different processes and different mechanisms. There's an increasing role of artificial intelligence in image science, and this would be many, many talks in their own right, both in terms of imagery construction and in image analysis. There is continuous research in new detectors. You want to have detectors that are efficient, you want to have detectors that have very, very good timing. You probably heard about time of flight pet, which again has a very strong impact on image quality. When you do research, these are expensive and hard studies to do. So it's very useful to be able to share data between different centers, which stresses the fact that you have to collect and analyze data in a way that's common between centers. That's data harmonization. Data sharing is technical challenges. There's also ethical challenges. There's a lot of now regulation in terms of privacy and so on and justifiably so. Infrastructure is costly and also, and this is very pertinent to us all, it's very, very important to educate ourselves to educate the researcher and to educate the public. Especially when it comes to nuclear medicine, the public needs to be educated and the medical doctors too on the proper use of radiation. Some is important, but one needs to know when enough is enough and that isn't too much. So in conclusion, there's impressive technical innovation and importantly, there's convergence between many different aspects of imaging and disease understanding. These two things have to go hand in hand. You have to develop and being cognizant of each other. You have to design imaging with trying to understand disease better, keeping in mind what is known about different diseases. And there's still a lot of very, very exciting work to do and very interdisciplinary work to do, which again makes it even more exciting. So with this, I really congratulate you once again, and I wish you very, very good luck with all of your future endeavors wherever your career may take you. And based on what I've seen, I have no doubt that you have a very bright future in front of you. And thank you again for giving me the opportunity to give this talk at this very, very special occasion. So thank you all. Thank you very much, Professor Sosi, for this very interesting lecture. When eight years ago we started designing the project of this master, we have been very fortunate to have the enthusiastic cooperation of two professional medical physicists, Prof. Renato Longo and Prof. Renato Padovani. But we also had an invaluable contribution from Dr. Ahmed Bigdifene, which at that time was working at the International Atomic Energy Agency. Ahmed is also one of our external scientific advisors. I mentioned two before, he's the third one, and he will address in remote some brief remarks. Ahmed? Yes. Thank you very much, Lukyano. Hello to everyone. It's a pleasure to share this celebration with all of you. And I would like to congratulate all the graduates. You have come from far, sometime from very far. You have worked hard, even very hard. And finally achieved your goal. Now it's time to make the best of all your required skills to take good care of patients. Remember that learning is a lifelong process. It's essential for improving the quality of the practice of medical physics. But if you need help or advice and I'm sure you will do, reach out to your colleagues, your teachers at the ICTP, your clinical supervisors in Italy and to the medical community, medical physics community at large. Finally, I welcome you all to the medical physics community and wish to all of you all the good things that life can offer. Thank you very much. Thank you Ahmed. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Now the director of the master, Prof. Renata Longo and the coordinator of the master, Prof. Renato Padovani, will address to you. Thank you, Lukyano. Dear students, it's said and done. It is difficult to say something else. But I want to say that it is a privilege for me to be the director of the master. Even it is an adventure. Every year is a new adventure. Because every year there are new persons, different stories, different backgrounds. Our intercultural community is a value. Even if some time it needs some extra energy, passion, in order to increase in our practice. In our ability to be together. But it's really an extraordinary experience for me and I hope it is also an extraordinary experience for you. Moreover, I know that you live in your family. Some of you have lived in your family. In order to come to Trieste, in order to spend two years in Italy, improving in your education in medical physics. I always touch about these points. So this means that we have a bigger responsibility in order to develop a programme at the level of the challenges that we face. I hope that we will meet this. But I'm also the witness that now you are ready. You increase very much in your knowledge, in your skills, in medical skills. I hope that you will meet this. nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda nda  I'm sure that our intercultural community, the discipline that was necessary in order to pass our demanding exams and also the challenges of the residency in our Italian hospital in a completely different environment from your country, new languages, new work organization. Okay, so I'm sure that now you are really a better person and I hope that this experience change you forever. Yesterday evening during the dinner, I was talking with the clinical supervisor and I verified a very strong relationship that are between you and your clinical supervisor. Keep in touch. When I was young, I spent time in Brasser and the clinical supervisor of that experience is a friend of my life and we are still in contact. So it is possible that even for you, the relationship that you created during this clinical training may be important not only for your professional life but maybe even for your personal life. Okay, I have nothing to say, share the knowledge, share the human experience that you have done during these two years because they may be important also for the other people that you are going to meet in your professional and personal life. Congratulations and good luck. And please keep in touch. Thank you very much, Renata. Now the coordinator of the master, Renato Vadovani. Thank you Luciano for the continuous effort in this adventure. Thank you for our guests to come here today and to contribute to this important ceremony for our graduates. I think it's an important day for you because after two years or difficult years because you know we are not to repeat what has been said many times also today. Far from the family, from the friends you had to cope with this additional problem. But finally you arrived to complete the program. On my point of view, I'm very satisfied of this past two days. I saw you as a real professional person with a lot of knowledge but also with the ability to share your knowledge in a very professional way. So I think I'm very proud about these achievements. In these two years we but also you have learned how our society can react to new events. So leaving a hospital you have learned how the health system is reacting to something new and expected. And we learn also from this. So we have to look also at what is positive from this experience. So we have learned a lot. And as Juma and as Antonis said before, you are charged of new responsibilities. Also Slavic and other speakers told you about this. So in many of your countries you will be the medical physicist with the highest education level. Good international relationship because this is another added value. So you are not only good friends but you have a network of professionals. We know from the past cycles that there is a continuous interactions between graduates but also between graduates and hospitals that host them for the clinical training. So and this is something that you have to spend in your country for the benefit of your institution, your patients, your country. So you have the duty to develop medical fields in your country. And this is another additional task for you for your future. And I'm sure looking also at many past experience I'm sure that you will reach very good achievements and results in your country. Now I take also the opportunity to thank all our supervisors at the medical physics department. We have the privilege to have now 26 hospitals that are collaborating, contributing to this action, to this international action. And I think there are more than 100 medical physicists that are supporting this action. And this is a very important contribution as Italian is a very important contribution of the Italian medical physics to this international action. Action aiming to develop medical physics in a lot of countries in the world. As Annalisa, thank you for coming. As Annalisa said as before, we are discussing to renovate the agreement between the Italian Association of Medical Physics and ICPP in order to strengthen our collaboration. But I can say is our interest to be to strengthen this collaboration because this program can run only with your contribution, your support. Thank you and thank you again. And graduates, many, many congratulations again. Have a safe journey back home and all the best for your future. Thank you very much. Now we can proceed with the actual degrees awarding the degrees will be awarded by a professor and not a longer for the university. And by Dr. Misha Kiselev, who is now the master supervisor for the ACP. Misha would like to say a few words before so. Where are you. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'm going to be very brief. So first of all, I congratulate all the students. You are the heroes of today. Welcome to the professions profession and my congratulations. And second, I would like to thank all three pillars of this very successful program. The University of Trieste, the International Atomic Agency for Generous Support, the ICTP. I would like to thank all the lecturers, all the teachers, all the supervisors. I would like to thank Italy and Italian Medical Institution and Italian Medical Association for making this program a reality and for everyday very efficient support. So thank you very much. And let's proceed with the diplomas. Thank you. Okay. Okay, the order is random. So be prepared to come to the stage. So Maurice Brian Paul from Jamaica. Arsanova Syrin from Uzbekistan. Oh, you have also a special gift. Congratulations, Syrin. Hirabo Shamira from Uganda. Congratulations. Florian Che Duardo-Jose from Guatemala. Besha Abitum Tamiru from Ethiopia. Otman Maram Salem Kaleil from Palestine. Congratulations. Aye Ayetin from Myanmar. Amber Bear Andualem Aile from Ethiopia. Erzik Wola from Belarus. Scott Anthony from Jamaica. Pelila Alemajeu Debo from Ethiopia. Noumbi Domgo Haniset Ingrid from Cameroon. Cambronero Gioselin from Los Angeles. Estarica Fiji Kathleen from Estonia. Yara Dama from Senegal. Azu Aya Kifama from Togo. Kevin Rises Begameina from El Salvador. Silue Kubeñeri Ali from Ivory Coast. Congratulations. Camfozi Alan from Malawi. Win Pio Wai from Myanmar. Manchi Maigwalca Oscar Enrique from Ecuador. Calderon Santamaria Juan Junior from Honduras. Penfetima Mohamed Ilyes from Algeria. Sangare Sumaila from Mali. Congratulations everybody.