SIRIS-Lab/unlabelled-sti-corpus huggingface dataset:
Understanding the role of intrinsic and extrinsic drivers of loss in species niches, to inform conservation planning under climate change

The extinction of species is the most alarming consequence of global biodiversity decline, with potential dramatic effects on our economy and well-being. The current rate of climate change is predicted to further increase extinction risk, hence there is urgent need to anticipate species decline rather than reacting to it. The breadth of a species’ niche - the set of environmental conditions in which the species can persist - is the key ecological trait that allows adaptation to environmental change, but is largely ignored in conservation planning applications. The goal of the PROTECTNICHE project is to disentangle the impacts of humans, climate change, and life history on the climatic niches of terrestrial mammals to inform a conservation strategy for preventing future species declines. This goal incorporates 3 objectives: i) Attribute the global change in past species climatic niches to intrinsic and extrinsic drivers; ii) Based on the models developed in Obj. 1, define a measure of adaptability to climate change for each species; iii) Based on the outcome of Obj. 2, develop a global conservation strategy to maximise the protection of species climatic niches while minimising their exposure to climate change. The project focuses on the world's terrestrial mammals, a data-rich group currently facing significant extinction rates, to develop and theoretically ground a conservation planning approach that can be also transfered to other taxa. Building on my expertise on extinction risk analysis and conservation planning, and the habitat and climatic modelling capabilities of Dr Rondinini and the Global Mammal Assessment lab, this project will define a proactive conservation plan where actions are prioritised to preserve species adaptive potential under global change. This is a research area of primary interest in Europe, given the EC has recognised that business opportunities from investing in biodiversity conservation could be worth US$ 2-6 trillion by 2050.
Rapid Assessment of Productivity of Purple Herons Ardea purpurea by Drone Conducted Monitoring

La medición de la productividad en las ardeidas es a menudo problemática debido a las dificultades de acceso al lugar y a la necesidad de evitar molestar a las aves que anidan. Los drones se utilizan cada vez más para aplicaciones ecológicas y su uso parece superar, al menos parcialmente, estos problemas. El presente estudio tiene como objetivo evaluar la eficacia y la seguridad del seguimiento con drones de la productividad de las garzas imperiales Ardea purpurea que se reproducen en los humedales del noreste de Italia. Se comparó la precisión de los conteos realizados con drones utilizando dos métodos (sobrevuelo vs. acercamiento) asumiendo que la combinación de ambos proporcionaba la abundancia real. Las 14 colonias estudiadas albergaban 615 nidos, la mayoría de los cuales estaban situados en cañaverales. El tamaño de las colonias no difirió en relación con el tipo de hábitat. Las colonias mostraron diferencias significativas en la productividad entre hábitats, con más crías que alcanzaron la edad de vuelo en las colonias situadas en los cañaverales que en los arbustos. En general, la precisión de los recuentos con drones, tanto en vuelo como en acercamiento, se mantuvo alta durante todo el periodo de cría. Los muestreos con drones causaron un bajo grado de perturbación. No se observaron efectos negativos aparentes de los vuelos de drones sobre las parejas nidificantes, las nidadas o las crías. El estudio muestra que el uso de drones permitió una medición eficaz de la productividad de la garza imperial, que fue rápida y segura para las aves.—Valle, R.G. y Scarton, F. (2022). Evaluación rápida de la productividad de la garza imperial Ardea purpurea mediante el seguimiento con drones.
Cloudification of production engineering for predictive digital manufacturing

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is essential for the digitalization of the manufacturing sector; notwithstanding, less than 25% of the manufacturing companies in Europe profit from ICT-enabled solutions. In order to democratically boost the competitiveness of the European manufacturers (especially Small and Medium-sized Enterprises - SMEs), innovative solutions need to consider technological and commercial scalability from the beginning. From this perspective, the cloudification of services has become the ideal enabler in the manufacturing digitalization. Successful European initiatives such us CloudFlow, cloudSME or Fortissimo have demonstrated the benefits of cloudification for engineering services, by means of combining HPC resources, computational tools, and cloud computing platforms. Manufacturing SMEs are empowered to compute and solve problems that cannot be tackled without cloud and HPC technology, making them more competitive by reducing development times for innovative product with better performance. The results of these initiatives are fostering the engineering and to some extend the prototyping processes within the manufacturing workflow; however, monitoring and optimizing production processes have not yet greatly benefited from an integrated information workflow and simulation loop based on on-line factory data. 
The core partners of CloudFlow (eu-cloudflow.eu) and cloudSME (cloudsme.eu) are joining forces to leverage factory data with cloud-based engineering tools: 
a) paving the way toward manufacturing analytics, 
b) enriching the manufacturing engineering process with on-line data, and 
c) simulating and optimizing the production process with the vision to support it in real-time. 
The consolidated platform between CloudFlow and cloudSME with extended capabilities to process factory data is going to be accessed through a central interface, enabling the stakeholders to interact, and collaborate.
Modeling the impact of the viaduct on particles dispersion from vehicle exhaust in street canyons

In this paper, the impact of the viaduct on flow and traffic exhausting particles dispersion within urban street canyons was numerically simulated using a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model. Two-dimensional flow and dispersion of particles from traffic exhausts were modeled using the standard k-a turbulence model. The street canyons with a viaduct at different widths and different heights above the ground are simulated. The results show that the airflow in street canyon is evidently influenced by the viaduct: The position of the main vortex center is changed, especially there are two strong vortexes when the viaduct is placed at 10 m height above the ground. It is found based on the study of the particles number concentrations (PNCs) that the viaduct may mitigate the pollution level in the street canyon sometimes. The impact of the viaduct width on PNCs is stronger than that of the height. The study of PNDs reveals that the mean PNCs at the wall of upwind building increase when a viaduct is placed in street canyon. In addition, it is found based on the study of mean particles residence time (PRT) that the removal of the particles strongly correlates to the mean PNCs. The results indicate that the viaduct is an important factor to influence the flow patterns and particles dispersion in street canyons.
A digital copy of the earth

NomokoAG is a fresh start-up based in Switzerland whose innovation has received public recognition right from the beginning.  Besides, the company entered “TOP100, The Best Swiss Start-ups in 2016”, received the 2016 ZKB Pionierpreis, than was elected among the “10 venture leaders in Technology 2017” and grew to be the “25th best Start-up of 2017 in Switzerland”. We provide solutions to automatically create “Artificial Reality”. With a strong belief that volumetric city-based 3D data is the future, we bring innovation to the digital mapping market, where accuracy is still a constraint for the development of several applications. Even if expecting to reach € 7.17 billion by 2025, the market is looking for alternatives able to raise the precision of digital maps at a cost-effective price.  In this context, we offer a digital copy of the Earth – a platform where you can build digital solutions and products that are rooted in “reality”. Nomoko is a cloud based engine turning the world from a static model to a dynamic one thanks to a real-world based, ultra-accurate and efficiently developed 3D model environment extracted from very high-resolution imagery acquired with in-house developed technology (1 Giga pixel digital camera coupled to a drone). Built as a web platform with a graphical user interface, Nomoko enables the integration of additional data about contextual information to semantically enhance the 3D model (using machine learning algorithms to perform object classification and highlighting elements like: house, traffic sign, composing materials) and link information to an object for further analytics. We propose a Platform as a Service approach enabling partnerships in view of client based tailored services generation. This project will provide us the right means and support for further commercialization of our product and confirm our financial projections of € 45.5 million accumulate revenues and an 18.65 return of investment.
Cross-country comparisons of student achievement: the role of social values

This paper looks at country-average results in surveys of student-achievements like PISA, PIRLS or TIMSS. As other recent papers do (Fensham, 2007; Minkov, 2008), I advance the idea that the between-countries differences are determined by cultural factors. Focusing on the macro-level, I discuss social values as part of the contextual determinants for student achievement. Values are defining features of the unwritten, but powerful, hidden curriculum (Cornbleth, 2002), and are likely to have strong impact on learning. I combine macro-data computed from the values surveys (EVS/WVS 1990-2008), respectively PISA, TIMSS, and PIRLS (1999-2009). Cross-classified models assess the effect of dominant social values on student achievement. The findings show that a society that places high value on autonomy in child rearing creates an environment for higher student achievement. Conversely, promoting authoritarian values as a priority for younger generations has the opposite effect. The effect is even stronger for achievements in mathematics.
Catching in action a novel bacterial chaperone for respiratory complexes

Cellular respiration provides energy to power essential processes of life.  Respiratory complexes are macromolecular batteries coupling electron flow through a wire of metal clusters and cofactors with proton transfer across the inner membrane of mitochondria and bacteria. Waste products of these cellular factories are reactive oxygen species causing ageing and diseases. Assembly and maturation mechanisms of respiratory complexes remain enigmatic because of their membrane location, multisubunit composition and cofactor insertion. E. coli Complex I, one of the largest membrane proteins, composed of 14 conserved subunits with 9 Fe/S clusters and a flavin, is a minimal model for its 45-subunit human homologue. When proton pumping by respiratory complexes is affected, bacteria become resistant to antibiotics requiring proton gradient for uptake. Based on the latest genetic data, we realize that the huge E. coli macromolecular cage, the structure of which we recently solved by cryo-electron microscopy (cryoEM), in conjunction with a novel protein cofactor, is a specific chaperone for Fe/S cluster biogenesis and assembly of respiratory complexes. This integrated multidisciplinary project combines cryoEM and other structural, biophysical and spectroscopic techniques, to uncover the functional mechanism of this emerging chaperone. The structural plasticity of the chaperone fuelled by ATP hydrolysis, and its interaction with Fe/S cluster biogenesis systems and the main respiratory complexes as a function of stresses, will be scrutinized to gain quasiatomic insights into the way the chaperone operates on its substrates. A novel technology for synergetic in situ investigation of protein complexes in the bacterial cytoplasm by optical imaging, state-of-the-art cryogenic correlative light and electron microscopy, and subtomogram analysis, will be developed and used to obtain snapshots of the chaperone-substrate interactions in the cellular context.
OC15.04: Operator-specific PAPP-A and free beta-hCG MoM values as a method of individual audit of CRL measurements at the NT scan. National data from 171,469 pregnancies

I. Kirkegaard1, C. K. Ekelund2, S. Ball3, P. Newell3, D. Wright3, P. Noergaard4, S. Soerensen5, L. Friis-Hansen6, N. Toerring7, N. Uldbjerg1, A. Tabor2, O. B. Petersen1, F. S. Jorgensen4 1Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus, Denmark; 2Fetal Medicine Unit, Department of Obstetrics, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen University Hospital, Copenhagen, Denmark; 3School of Computing and Mathematics, University of Plymouth, Plymouth, United Kingdom; 4Fetal Medicine Unit, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Hvidovre, Copenhagen University Hospital, Copenhagen, Denmark; 5Department of Clinical Biochemistry, Hvidovre, Copenhagen University Hospital, Copenhagen, Denmark; 6Department of Clinical Biochemistry, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen University Hospital, Copenhagen, Denmark; 7Department of Clinical Biochemistry, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus, Denmark
Looking through disorder

Photonic structures are extremely widespread in nature, and studying how light interacts with them is important. This contributes to understanding of the structures’ biological significance and also supports development of novel, bio-inspired optical materials. 

Natural photonic structures are, however, generally very challenging to model when one refuses to approximate their optical response to the one of simple periodic materials. The complications in describing light-matter interaction in such systems are introduced by the fact that natural structures are highly hierarchical (with features spread on different length-scales) and generally affected by disorder.

With this proposal, we want to address these challenges by developing novel analysis tools, which will be used to increase understanding of disordered photonic structures. In particular, we will develop tools for two systems: One system is the striations found on a range of flower petals, which create iridescence due to their grating-like organisation. The other system is that of the helicoidal multilayer structure found in Pollia condensata fruit. This gives rise to a colour-selective, characteristic appearance, impossible to obtain using only pigmentation.

The scientific goal of developing novel analysis tools for complex and disordered photonic structures is important in biology. Moreover, such tools will find application in the development of novel photonic structures, and they are relevant not only for natural photonics materials, but more in general, for self-assembled systems where disorder and hierarchical structuring are an inherent part of the fabrication process.
Primary Metabolism of Chickpea Is the Initial Target of Wound Inducing Early Sensed Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. ciceri Race I

Biotrophic interaction between host and pathogen induces generation of reactive oxygen species that leads to programmed cell death of the host tissue specifically encompassing the site of infection conferring resistance to the host. However, in the present study, biotrophic relationship between Fusarium oxysporum and chickpea provided some novel insights into the classical concepts of defense signaling and disease perception where ROS (reactive oxygen species) generation followed by hypersensitive responses determined the magnitude of susceptibility or resistant potentiality of the host.Microscopic observations detected wound mediated in planta pathogenic establishment and its gradual progression within the host vascular tissue. cDNA-AFLP showed differential expression of many defense responsive elements. Real time expression profiling also validated the early recognition of the wound inducing pathogen by the host. The interplay between fungus and host activated changes in primary metabolism, which generated defense signals in the form of sugar molecules for combating pathogenic encounter.The present study showed the limitations of hypersensitive response mediated resistance, especially when foreign encounters involved the food production as well as the translocation machinery of the host. It was also predicted from the obtained results that hypersensitivity and active species generation failed to impart host defense in compatible interaction between chickpea and Fusarium. On the contrary, the defense related gene(s) played a critical role in conferring natural resistance to the resistant host. Thus, this study suggests that natural selection is the decisive factor for selecting and segregating out the suitable type of defense mechanism to be undertaken by the host without disturbing its normal metabolism, which could deviate from the known classical defense mechanisms.
Stealth dark matter: Dark scalar baryons through the Higgs portal

We present a new model of "Stealth Dark Matter": a composite baryonic scalar of an $SU(N_D)$ strongly-coupled theory with even $N_D \geq 4$. All mass scales are technically natural, and dark matter stability is automatic without imposing an additional discrete or global symmetry. Constituent fermions transform in vector-like representations of the electroweak group that permit both electroweak-breaking and electroweak-preserving mass terms. This gives a tunable coupling of stealth dark matter to the Higgs boson independent of the dark matter mass itself. We specialize to $SU(4)$, and investigate the constraints on the model from dark meson decay, electroweak precision measurements, basic collider limits, and spin-independent direct detection scattering through Higgs exchange. We exploit our earlier lattice simulations that determined the composite spectrum as well as the effective Higgs coupling of stealth dark matter in order to place bounds from direct detection, excluding constituent fermions with dominantly electroweak-breaking masses. A lower bound on the dark baryon mass $m_B \gtrsim 300$ GeV is obtained from the indirect requirement that the lightest dark meson not be observable at LEP II. We briefly survey some intriguing properties of stealth dark matter that are worthy of future study, including: collider studies of dark meson production and decay; indirect detection signals from annihilation; relic abundance estimates for both symmetric and asymmetric mechanisms; and direct detection through electromagnetic polarizability, a detailed study of which will appear in a companion paper.
Privacy and usability

With the rapid accumulation and processing of personal data by numerous organizations, it is of paramount importance to protect people from adverse uses of their data, while allowing them to enjoy the benefits the use of these data can possibly provide. This is the question of protecting citizens’ privacy, while enabling them to make informed decisions regarding their actions with privacy implications.

The PRIVACY.US innovative training network will train thirteen creative, entrepreneurial and innovative early stage researchers (ESRs) to be able to reason, design and develop innovative solutions to questions related to the protection of citizens’ privacy, considering the multidisciplinary and intersectoral aspects of the issue. ESRs will be trained to face both current and future challenges in the area of privacy and usability. PRIVACY.US offers a combination of research-related and transferable competence skills that will enhance the career perspectives of the ESRs in both the academic and non-academic sectors.

The consortium consists of five universities and five non-academic organizations. This deliberate and balanced construction will ensure that the project outcomes and impacts are maximal with respect to the call criteria and the EU policy areas regarding data security and privacy. The market potential for the generated knowledge is also a key element of this proposal. The consortium industrial partners are three SMEs, one large enterprise, and a data-protection authority.

The ESRs will receive comprehensive training and engage in intersectoral collaboration. Through this collaborative effort, the project will make a significant contribution and impact to the ESRs future careers. It will also contribute to shaping future privacy policies and practices in Europe and will significantly advance the state of the art in privacy and usability research.
Studies and joint actions to promote the use of LNG in commercial ports

PROMO-GNL takes up the challenge of promoting and accelerating the adoption of LNG in port and maritime operations. The objective is to create a coordinated framework of joint feasibility studies and educated choices promoting optimal LNG use as a less polluting fuel in the trading ports of the cooperation area. The partnership is made up of the major public players in the area of cooperation with the support of university and industrial research; in addition, the project coordinates with all the other LNG projects of the same component. The feasibility studies will focus on common elements and local specificities. The promotional actions aimed at the key players are based on a joint framework of optimal options. PROMO-LNG implements the following: - 5 studies on the technological, economic, social and system feasibility of the cooperation area and integration with TEN-Ts; - synopsis of the knowledge needed to recognise optimal LNG applications and the technical, environmental and social barriers and enabling factors; - seminars and joint high-level promotion meetings focused on increasing the knowledge and interests of the decision-makers involved in adopting and using LNG in ports, so as to initiate a qualified decision-making process based on rigorous and clear knowledge - integration of interrelated Maritime programme project results pertaining to LNG and the connection with the EGCC-Îles being set up. PROMO-GNL provides a method of shared and collaborative innovation for all interested parties, so as to identify the most promising options and pave the way towards the transition to LNG.