SIRIS-Lab/unlabelled-sti-corpus huggingface dataset:
Leadership and Partnerships for the European Green Deal: EU Relations with (Re)Emerging Economies

L’European Green Deal (EGD) (en français, Pacte vert pour l’Europe) a été décrit comme une stratégie de transformation pour le continent européen, mais son succès dépend également de la coopération au niveau mondial. Par conséquent, l’UE a l’intention d’impliquer d’autres acteurs et de faire preuve de leadership international sur l’agenda climatique et la transition énergétique. Le présent document analyse la dimension extérieure de la stratégie européenne de développement durable, en mettant l’accent sur les partenariats mondiaux et le leadership de l’UE. Plus précisément, il examine les relations entre l’UE et les économies (ré)émergentes, notamment avec la Chine, l’Inde, l’Indonésie, le Mexique, la Russie et l’Afrique du Sud. Sur la base d’informations acquises grâce à la coopération avec des institutions de recherche locales, le document examine les perspectives de partenariat entre l’UE et ces pays dans la mise en œuvre des objectifs de l’EGD. Nous soutenons qu’il existe un grand potentiel pour une coopération verte entre l’UE et les économies (émergentes). Toutefois, un conflit diplomatique pourrait survenir si l’UE tente de transférer les coûts de la transition énergétique sur les pays partenaires.
Tuning the p-type conductivity of ZnSe nanowiresvia silver doping for rectifying and photovoltaic device applications

Applications of one-dimensional (1D) semiconductor nanostructures in nanoelectronics and nano-optoelectronics rely on the ability to rationally tune their electrical transport properties. Here we report the synthesis of single-crystalline Ag-doped ZnSe nanowires (NWs) by using silver sulfide (Ag2S) as the p-type dopant via a thermal evaporation method. The ZnSe:Ag NWs had the zinc blende structure with [11 ] growth orientation. Significantly, the conductivities of the NWs could be tuned over 9 orders of magnitude by adjusting the Ag doping levels. Field-effect transistors (FETs) constructed from the ZnSe:Ag NWs verified their p-type nature with a hole concentration of up to 2.1 × 1019 cm−3, which is the highest value achieved for p-type ZnSe nanostructures thus far. Schottky barrier diodes (SBDs) based on the ZnSe:Ag NW/ITO junctions exhibited remarkable rectifying behavior, with a rectification ratio of >107 and a small ideality factor of ∼1.29 at 320 K. Moreover, photovoltaic devices were fabricated from the ZnSe NW array/Si p–n heterojunctions by aligning the p-ZnSe NWs in a parallel fashion on a n-Si substrate. The device with a graphene top electrode showed a large fill factor (FF) of 61%, yielding a power conversion efficiency of ∼1.04%. The realization of p-type ZnSe NWs with tunable conductivity opens up opportunities for a host of high-performance nanoelectronic and nano-optoelectronic devices.
The sound of empire in 20th-c. colonial cultures: rethinking history through music

To better understand cultural relations in today’s multi-ethnic, multicultural societies, we need to revisit the legacy of modern empires. This project delves into the musical dimension of the French empire and what differences were negotiated through aurality, long-neglected by historians. Focusing on musical life and media from Dakar and Rabat to Saigon, 1900-1962, it studies how music was practiced, heard, and understood in a variety of colonial contexts. Crucially important is the need to investigate the tastes, practices, and interactions of Europeans and natives, usually studied in isolation. Such scope requires an entirely new methodological paradigm: relational, comparative, and integrative-synthetic. Traversing disciplinary boundaries separating musicology from history, media studies, and ethnomusicology, the project has four objectives: (1) To musicalize history, it probes what musical fields of production contribute to current debates on the nature of empire and colonial identities. (2) To historicize aural media, it examines live and recorded music on radio as windows on the dynamic nature of colonial coexistence. (3) To globalize music history, it brings new coherence with its focus on a single empire and without imposing postcolonial models of domination/resistance. (4) To creolize research, it integrates indigenous research and promotes dialogue with collaborators from the former empire. Foundations laid by the PI’s prior research in colonial archives, availability of sources, each team member’s expertise and focus on one field, their shared method, and common purpose insure its feasibility. This pioneering study of the modern French empire through music will generate new insights into its mechanisms and constituencies, taking colonial, media, and music history in unprecedented directions. Only in understanding the aurality of colonialism--what helped their imperialism take hold and last--can Europeans grasp its full nature, meaning, and legacy.
Associations between child sexual abuse and negative sexual experiences and revictimization among women: Does measuring severity matter?

Women with histories of child sexual abuse (CSA) are more likely than those without such experiences to report a variety of negative sexual outcomes. This study examines the explanatory power of a CSA summed composite versus dichotomous (presence/absence) measurement in predicting a comprehensive negative sexual behavior outcome. Study participants were obtained from a community based sample examining women's sexual decision-making. The continuous CSA measurement reflects cumulative histories of CSA through a composite score capturing abuse specific characteristics. Using a cross-validation approach, the sample (n=835) was randomly split and the explanatory power of each measure was examined through a series of multiple linear regressions comparing model fit indexes and performing a formal likelihood ratio test of one model against another. All CSA measures explained a similar percentage of variance but overall the CSA summed composite explained the data significantly better in terms predicting negative sexual experiences and revictimization than a binary measure as demonstrated with the likelihood ratio test. The results were replicated by cross-validating the predictive power of the CSA composite score between the split samples. Consistency of CSA regression estimates for the summed composite between training and validation samples were also confirmed. Given the superiority of the CSA summed composites over the binary variable, we recommend using this measure when examining associations between CSA histories and negative sexual experiences and revictimization.
Innovative strategies for cancer prevention with focus on sex hormone signaling and chronic inflammation

Incidence and prevalence of many cancer types are significantly increasing worldwide, with substantial differences between the sexes. Environmental influences in concert with genetic and epigenetic factors are still poorly understood.
Simultaneously, more sophisticated and expensive treatments cannot be afforded by society, increasing urgency of efforts in cancer prevention.
CANCERPREV is an innovative interdisciplinary research and training program gathering seven academic beneficiaries and nine partner organizations : (one leading pharmaceutical company, one leading technology company, a health insurance, an internationally known nursing school, three foundations and two universities) in nine European countries. CANCERPREV aims to establish new strategies in cancer prevention, with a focus on two key determinants of cancer risk: sex hormone signaling and chronic inflammation, in breast and skin as benchmarks of early steps of cancer development in organs with reproductive and non-reproductive functions, respectively.
Fifteen Early Stage Researchers (ESRs) will benefit from the complementary expertise of participating organizations and Principal Investigators in: basic cancer research, xenografts and genetic mouse models, bioinformatics and mathematical algorithms, epidemiology / human genetics, biomarkers, pharmacological approaches, behavioral / societal issues and outreach.
This network provides ESRs with unique future career opportunities in both academic and private sectors, through research training for PhD thesis projects with secondments and short and long visits to other participating research institutions, and yearly courses / formal lectures on various aspects of cancer prevention, including global health and occupational / behavioral issues. CANCERPREV will ensure that more knowledge and ideas are converted into products and services, and that a new generation of scientists is trained to contribute to the knowledge-based economy and society.
Innovative solutions for sustainable mobility of people in suburban city districts and emission free freight logistics in urban centres.

The cities of Madrid, Stockholm, Munich, Turku and Ruse have formed the CIVITAS ECCENTRIC consortium to tackle the challenges of mobility in suburban districts and clean, silent and CO2 free city logistics. In many cities, these two important areas have received less attention in urban mobility policies.

Though European cities have made significant steps forward in making city centres attractive and liveable urban nodes, there is a remaining conflict between providing high quality public space and meeting the accessibility requirements for freight deliveries. The suburban areas have remained largely unaddressed with a much higher car usage as a consequence. Recent or expected urban growth processes are posing additional pressure to peri-central areas, which face the specific challenges of:

• Becoming sufficiently appealing to avoid an unnecessary traffic flow towards to the city centre; 
• Providing sustainable and high quality mobility options to enable and encourage car independent lifestyles; and
• Planning the urban future according to carbon neutral mobility principles.

ECCENTRIC will demonstrate and test the potential and replicability of integrated and inclusive urban planning approaches, innovative policies and emerging technologies to reach sustainable urban mobility objectives. The solutions will be implemented in 5 living laboratory areas in the outskirts that face high population growth and an increasing pressure on the existing transport networks. 

As highlighted in the SUMPs of the ECCENTRIC cities, this action on a wider geographical scale than the city centre is needed in order to meet the targets of the Transport White Paper in terms of air quality, energy use and CO2 emissions, road casualties and wide uptake of clean vehicles.

To reach CO2 free city logistics by 2030, ECCENTRIC will test clean vehicles and fuels, formulate new regulations and services and develop consolidation solutions in close partnerships with the private sector.
Dystocia in Friesian cows and its effects on postpartum reproductive performance and milk production

A total of 1,243 records for 585 dairy Friesian cows from 1997-2004 were used to study the factors affecting dystocia and its effects on reproductive performance and milk production. The overall incidence of dystocia was 6.9%. The percentage of dystocia decreased with increasing live body weight, age, and parity of cows (P < 0.05); however, it increased with increasing birth weight of calves (P < 0.05). The highest percentage of dystocia was detected in winter season, but the least percentage was in summer season (P < 0.05). The percentage of incidence of dystocia was significantly (P < 0.05) higher with winter feeding compared to summer ration (8.2% vs. 5.1%). The percentage of incidence of dystocia was significantly (P < 0.05) higher with twinning than single calving (15.5% vs. 6.5%), while not significantly affected by the sex of born calves. Incidence of dystocia had adverse effects on reproductive performance and milk yield. The service interval, service period, days open, and calving interval were significantly (P < 0.05) longer in cows afflicted with dystocia compared to normal cows. The conception rate was lower (P < 0.05), but the number of service per conception was higher (P < 0.05) in cows afflicted with dystocia compared to normal cows (60.5% vs. 73.0% and 3.4 vs. 2.7, respectively). Average daily milk yield was lower (P < 0.05) by 1 kg for cows with incidence of dystocia compared to normal cows.
Child friendly destinations

WONDER project’s main overall objective is to increase the attractiveness and competitiveness of destinations from the Adriatic-Ionian Region thanks to a child-friendly approach, aimed at improving the liveability of cities and the touristic offer (governance, environment and services) through the development of new and innovative participatory methods.

In this sense, the expected results produced will be:

- New touristic offer addressed to children and families through innovative participatory methods.

- Improved cooperation at local and transnational level among tourism sector, local authorities, civil society organisations and citizens/children.

- Well-defined transnational identity and raising awareness developed on child-friendly tourism in the Adriatic-Ionian area.

The above mentioned results will be reached through 2 main outputs: 

1. WONDER ACTION PLAN aimed at collecting the actions and strategies to be undertaken by cities to become "Child-friendly destinations".

2. WONDER-Transnational Network of Child-Friendly Destinations, targeting different groups from general public (including children), education institutions, civil society and NGOs, to public bodies and authorities, but also the private sector, including enterprises in the tourism sector.

The WONDER project will combine a top-down approach (decisions and strategies at local authority level) with a bottom-up approach (children’s, civil society, business sector, media involvement) to develop an innovative approach for child-friendly destinations. Cooperation among partners and the transnational approach will be strategic in order to properly address a complete and integrated policy targeted to children, both as residents and tourists establishing a transnational network of “Child-friendly destinations” featured by a common brand.
Vegetation Optical Depth and Soil Moisture Retrieval Using L-Band Radiometry Over the Entire Growing Season of a Winter Wheat Stand

This paper describes the first results of a field experiment conducted at the Selhausen remote sensing field laboratory (Germany) over the entire growing season of a winter wheat. Brightness temperature measurements were performed with the passive microwave L-band radiometer ELBARA-II. The data were collected above two different footprints within a homogeneous winter wheat stand in order to disentangle between the radiation originating from the soil and the radiation originating from the vegetation. In a first step, the brightness temperature $(T_{\mathrm{B}})$ data collected above the first plot with the soil surface covered by a metal grid (i.e., blocking the radiations from the ground) were used to retrieve the vegetation optical depth ( $\tau$ ). In a second step, $T_{\mathrm{B}}$ data collected above the second plot without the metal grid on the soil surface were used to retrieve the soil surface moisture using several inverse modeling approaches. All modeling investigations were performed with the simple zero-order $\tau-\omega$ model. The results show that using $\tau$ data derived from the first plot as a priori information, which showed to be time, polarization, and angle dependent, allows us to improve the soil moisture retrieval, due to a better representation of the vegetation canopy effect on the measured $T_{\mathrm{B}}$ . Furthermore, the correlations between $\tau$ and different vegetation indices were analyzed and highlight the potential of $\tau$ in terms of vegetation monitoring for, e.g., all-weather measurements compared to optical measurements.
CABLE-RELEASE ANCHOR ASSEMBLY

A cable-release anchor assembly including a cable mounting plate adapted for removably holding a cable proximate its terminal end and a leveraging member positioned to release the cable from the terminal end when the leveraging member is impacted. The cable may be connected to a safety system such as, but not limited to, a cable barrier system, W-beam guardrail, and/or an energy absorption system.
Abundance, Distribution, and Modes of Occurrence of Uranium in Chinese Coals

Due to its environmental and resource impacts, the geochemistry of uranium in coal is of both academic and practical significance. In order to give a comprehensive summary about the geochemistry of uranium in coals, the abundance, distribution, and modes of occurrence of uranium in Chinese coals were reviewed in this paper. Although some coals from southwestern and northwestern China are significantly enriched in uranium, the common Chinese coals are of a comparable uranium concentration to the world coals. The roof and floor rocks, and parting of coalbeds, or coal benches that are close to the surrounding rock are favorable hosts for uranium in one coalbed. The uranium concentrations in coals of different ages decrease in this order, e.g., Paleogene and Neogene > Late Permian > Late Triassic > Late Carboniferous and Early Permian > Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous > Early and Middle Jurassic. Uranium in Chinese coals is mainly associated with organic matter, and is correspondingly enriched in subbituminous coal and lignite.
Promotion of cells to close gaps and encourage cell coverage, by radio frequency glow discharge treatment

Exposure of dental abutments to cleaning and sterilizing Radio Frequency Glow Discharge Treatment (RFGDT) triggered greater degrees of human gingival fibroblast (HGF) attachment and spreading over their surfaces. Enhanced cell growth and metabolic activity of such HGFs were found which might lead to improved cellular margins in the smile-revealing "esthetic zone". This investigation, approved by the Institutional Review Board, employed in vitro studies of HGFs to support in vivo clinical applications of differentially treated titanium healing abutments to demonstrate the possible improvements for tissue growth around dental implants. Harvested commercially pure titanium (cpTi) abutments from three clinical cases per group revealed that separation of the abutments from the human gingival tissues occurred mainly intercellularly rather than directly from the tissue, suggesting that placement of an RFGDT permanent abutment would trigger tissue-integration more completely than noted with usual alcohol-cleaned abutments. This work confirmed and extended observations of prior studies that RFGDT materials have mitogenic effects that might be captured for stimulating desired tissue growth around implanted biomaterial appliances. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res Part A: 105A: 169-177, 2017.
Irskin provides dermatologists a new dermatoscope, equipped with a software for visual comparisons in the diagnostic phase, performing a content based image retrieval from an a-priori built database.

Skin tumors are the most frequent cancer in fair skinned population with a raising trend over in the world. The financial costs of skin cancer are high for both the person with cancer and for society as a whole (in Europe the cost of a biopsy is about 250-300€, including the costs of the doctor, the nurse, the material of the operating room, histology and checkups). The probability of survival is high, but the diagnosis accuracy is low.
IRSkin is a videodermatoscope (and a potential mobile application) with a pre-installed software, able to acquire high-definition images (up to 10 Mpx), insert them in a body map, process, analyze and compare them in real time with a collection of dermoscopic images, histologically diagnosed, collected in an incremental database, a priori stored in the memory of the machine, by means of a Content-Based Image Retrieval (CBIR) system. This system allows every dermatologist to access to a large amount of data at a relatively low cost and to improve his own experience and diagnosis skills much more quickly. For patients it will increase the diagnostic accurancy and the diagnostic timing. 
The targeted market is a niche but with good revenue and growth perspectives. In Europe there are about 15.000 dermatologists working in public or private health facilities. IRSkin is first addressed to the EU with potential for global markets (thanks to its export to more than 95 countries). CA-MI would also export this product in USA, because of its high incidence rate of skin melanoma and its high annual cost of treating skin cancers. The Phase 1 will provide a more accurate and analytic assessment of the existing market and growth rates for videodermatoscopes by segment and geographic area, useful to partecipate to the phase 2. Funding required to develop a prototype  is about 2000k€.
Venture capital investment and the performance of entrepreneurial firms: Evidence from China

Abstract We examine the contributions of venture capital investment to entrepreneurial firms in China. Based on a panel dataset of Chinese manufacturing firms, we investigate the performance and R&D activities of venture capital-backed (VC-backed) and non-VC-backed firms during the period 1998 to 2007. We explore whether VC-backed firms in China generally outperform their non-VC-backed counterparts, and if so, whether this outperformance is mainly attributed to the ex-ante screening or ex-post monitoring efforts of venture capitalists (VCs). We then determine whether the different types of VCs and investment approaches affect the ex-post monitoring efforts of VCs, and consequently, the performance and R&D activities of the VC-backed firms. Our analysis shows that VC-backed firms outperform non-VC-backed firms in terms of profitability, labor productivity, sales growth, and R&D investment. First, VCs select firms with higher profitability, labor productivity, and sales growth, as well as firms that invest more in R&D activities. Moreover, the differences in profitability and labor productivity are significantly magnified after VC entry. After receiving investment from VCs, firms on average achieve magnified higher ROS, ROE, and labor productivity compared to non-VC-backed firms. However, no evidence demonstrates the magnified improvement in sales growth or R&D investment of the VC-backed firms after the venture investment is made. We distinguish the screening and value added effects by using propensity score matching. We also use instrumental variables to determine whether the post-investment performance improvements of the firms are driven by the venture capital investment. Finally, we find different types of VCs and investment approaches affect the performance of the firms after the investment is made. Foreign VCs add more value to the firms they invest in compared to domestic VCs. Firms backed by syndicated investment perform better and invest more in R&D after the investment is made compared to those backed by non-syndicated investment and non-VC-backed firms.