The 7th USERN Congress and Prize Awarding Festival, 1st Day, November 8th

The 7th international USERN Congress and Prize Awarding Festival was officially started today November 8^th, 2022 at 8 AM Muscat time (4 AM GMT). The event was held at Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Oman, and broadcast live via Zoom to audiences all over the world.

The session was inaugurated by an opening ceremony and speech from USERN founding president, Professor Nima Rezaei. In this speech, Prof. Rezaei addressed the aim of the congress to spread scientific understanding of the universe for all, which is also one of the founding principles of USERN. The opening ceremony was continued by Dr. Maha Al Khaduri, the local chair of the congress.

In collaboration with Health and Art (HEART) group, the session also included the awarding ceremony of the 8^th International Festival of Paintings for Pediatric Patients (IFPPP). After receiving hundreds of paintings from children all over the world, 250 paintings were selected by peer review to proceed to the next round. As with every year, three patients from each age group were selected as the final winners. The winners of this year’s festival are as follows:

Group A (3-6 years old)

1. Selda Arami, 6 years old, Iran
2. Eleonora Petrova, 5 years old, Bulgaria
3. Nika Vaziri, 6 years old, Iran

Group B (7-10 years old)

1. Venus Mahaki, 7 years old, Iran
2. Alexa Dimitrova, 10 years old, Bulgaria
3. AmirHosein Tafahi, 9 years old, Iran

Group C (11-14 years old)

1. Petya Dimitrova, 11 years old, Bulgaria
2. Reyhane Ali Panahi, 13 years old, Iran
3. Parham Kheiri, 12 years old, Iran

Group D (15-18 years old)

1. Marchenko Sofiya, 15 years old, Russia
2. Sarina Rabi Hamedani, 15 years old, Iran
3. Khush Shah, 15 years old, India

A keynote lecture was presented by Dr. Andrea Cossarizza, a world-renowned immunologist on the subject of “immune control of spillover and zoonosis: the lesson of COVID-19”. The session continued with a senior talk by Dr. Zahid Al Munthri on the experience of Oman in using Artificial Intelligence for breast cancer screening and Dr. Natalie Samhan on Reified networks simulating the effect of different culture types on mistake handling and organizational learning. Today’s special panel explored the use of AI as an Integration Factor for Modelling Synchrony and Behavioral Adaptivity in the Brain, Body, and Social World in a Joint Keynote Lecture by Prof. Jan Treur and Dr. Sophie Hendrikse. The first day of the congress concluded with a Q&A panel and virtual lectures from young researchers in biological sciences.