Coffee C21 and protection of DNA from strand breaks: evaluation of a health claim pursuant to Article 13(5) of Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006
In: EFSA journal, Band 18, Heft 3
ISSN: 1831-4732
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In: EFSA journal, Band 18, Heft 3
ISSN: 1831-4732
In: EFSA journal, Band 18, Heft 3
ISSN: 1831-4732
Ocean acidification (OA) is a global problem with profoundly negative environmental, social and economic consequences. From a governance perspective, there is a need to ensure a coordinated effort to directly address it. This study reviews 90 legislative documents from 17 countries from the European Economic Area (EEA) and the UK that primarily border the sea. The primary finding from this study is that the European national policies and legislation addressing OA is at best uncoordinated. Although OA is acknowledged at the higher levels of governance, its status as an environmental challenge is greatly diluted at the European Union Member State level. As a notable exception within the EEA, Norway seems to have a proactive approach towards legislative frameworks and research aimed towards further understanding OA. On the other hand, there was a complete lack of, or inadequate reporting in the Marine Strategy Framework Directive by the majority of the EU Member States, with the exception of Italy and the Netherlands. We argue that the problems associated with OA and the solutions needed to address it are unique and cannot be bundled together with traditional climate change responses and measures. Therefore, European OA-related policy and legislation must reflect this and tailor their actions to mitigate OA to safeguard marine ecosystems and societies. A stronger and more coordinated approach is needed to build environmental, economic and social resilience of the observed and anticipated changes to the coastal marine systems. ; peer-reviewed
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Abstract Modern data legislation increasingly empowers citizens, and therefore patients, with rights to access and control their health data. The mechanisms needed to exercise modern data rights are currently underdeveloped and underserving individuals and societies. MyData is the human-centric approach to shift the power of personal data more equitably into the hands of individuals as part of a fair data economy. In this article, we present different scenarios that apply the MyData principles for human-centric control of health data. These scenarios demonstrate the potential of the human-centric approach for turning data rights into truly actionable points for policy makers, healthcare stakeholders, and medical communicators.
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This document explores possible means for sustaining the European Open Science Cloud beyond its initial phase which terminates at the end of 2020. This independent document builds on earlier strawman and tinman versions and the feedback received from the EOSC Executive Board, Governance Board as well as the European Commission (EC) and the stakeholder community on each version. It also takes into account the progress towards the EOSC goals as well as the outputs of commissioned studies. It considers the financing model, legal vehicle, governance structure under the planned European Partnership with the EC as well as the regulatory and policy environment of the EOSC. It recommends beginning with a first iteration to establish a Minimum Viable EOSC (MVE) addressing the needs of publicly funded researchers exploiting openly available data. Subsequent iterations expand the EOSC to address usage beyond openly available FAIR data and engage a wider user base including the public sector and the private sector.
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Ocean acidification (OA) is a global problem with profoundly negative environmental, social and economic consequences. From a governance perspective, there is a need to ensure a coordinated effort to directly address it. This study reviews 90 legislative documents from 17 countries from the European Economic Area (EEA) and the UK that primarily border the sea. The primary finding from this study is that the European national policies and legislation addressing OA is at best uncoordinated. Although OA is acknowledged at the higher levels of governance, its status as an environmental challenge is greatly diluted at the European Union Member State level. As a notable exception within the EEA, Norway seems to have a proactive approach towards legislative frameworks and research aimed towards further understanding OA. On the other hand, there was a complete lack of, or inadequate reporting in the Marine Strategy Framework Directive by the majority of the EU Member States, with the exception of Italy and the Netherlands. We argue that the problems associated with OA and the solutions needed to address it are unique and cannot be bundled together with traditional climate change responses and measures. Therefore, European OA-related policy and legislation must reflect this and tailor their actions to mitigate OA to safeguard marine ecosystems and societies. A stronger and more coordinated approach is needed to build environmental, economic and social resilience of the observed and anticipated changes to the coastal marine systems.
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Seafloor multiparametric fibre-optic-cabled video observatories are emerging tools for standardized monitoring programmes, dedicated to the production of real-time fishery-independent stock assessment data. Here, we propose that a network of cabled cameras can be set up and optimized to ensure representative long-term monitoring of target commercial species and their surrounding habitats. We highlight the importance of adding the spatial dimension to fixed-point-cabled monitoring networks, and the need for close integration with Artificial Intelligence pipelines, that are necessary for fast and reliable biological data processing. We then describe two pilot studies, exemplary of using video imagery and environmental monitoring to derive robust data as a foundation for future ecosystem-based fish-stock and biodiversity management. The first example is from the NE Pacific Ocean where the deep-water sablefish (Anoplopoma fimbria) has been monitored since 2010 by the NEPTUNE cabled observatory operated by Ocean Networks Canada. The second example is from the NE Atlantic Ocean where the Norway lobster (Nephrops norvegicus) is being monitored using the SmartBay observatory developed for the European Multidisciplinary Seafloor and water column Observatories. Drawing from these two examples, we provide insights into the technological challenges and future steps required to develop full-scale fishery-independent stock assessments. ; This work was funded by the following project activities: ARIM (Autonomous Robotic sea-floor Infrastructure for benthopelagic Monitoring; MartTERA ERA-Net Cofound), ARCHES (Autonomous Robotic Networks to Help Modern Societies; German Helmholtz Association), RESBIO (TEC2017-87861-R; Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, Spanish Government), RESNEP (CTM2017-82991-C2-1-R; Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, Spanish Government), and SmartLobster (EMSO-LINK Trans National Access-TNA). The EMSO_SmartBay cabled observatory was funded by Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) as part of a SFI Research Infrastructure Award Grant No. 12/RI/2331. ; Peer Reviewed ; Postprint (author's final draft)
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The incorporation of nanostructures in optoelectronic devices for enhancing their optical performance has been widely studied. However, several problems related with the processing complexity and the low performance of the nanostructures have hindered such actions in reallife devices. In this work, we propose a novel way of introducing gold nanoparticles in a solar cell structure in which the nanostructures are encapsulated with a dielectric layer, shielding them from high temperatures and harsh growth processing conditions of the remaining device. Through optical simulations, an enhancement of the effective optical path length of approximately four times the nominal thickness of the absorber layer was verified with the new architecture. Furthermore, we demonstrate the proposed concept in a Cu(In,Ga)Se2 solar cell device, where the short circuit current density is increased by 17.4 %. The novel structure presented in this work is achieved by combining a bottom-up chemical approach of depositing the nanostructures with a top-down photolithographic process, which allows for an electrical contact. ; This work was funded in part by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) under Grants IF/00133/2015, PD/BD/142780/2018 and SFRH/BD/ 146776/2019. The authors also want to acknowledge the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme through the ARCIGS-M project under Grant 720887, the Special Research Fund (BOF) of Hasselt University, the FCT through the project NovaCell (PTDC/CTM-CTM/28075/ 2017), and InovSolarCells (PTDC/FISMAC/29696/2017) co-funded by FCT and the ERDF through COMPETE2020. The authors also want to acknowledge Sandra Maya for the production of images used in this work.
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Control over carrier type and doping levels in semiconductor materials is key for optoelectronic applications. In colloidal quantum dots (CQDs), these properties can be tuned by surface chemistry modification, but this has so far been accomplished at the expense of reduced surface passivation and compromised colloidal solubility; this has precluded the realization of advanced architectures such as CQD bulk homojunction solids. Here we introduce a cascade surface modification scheme that overcomes these limitations. This strategy provides control over doping and solubility and enables n-type and p-type CQD inks that are fully miscible in the same solvent with complete surface passivation. This enables the realization of homogeneous CQD bulk homojunction films that exhibit a 1.5 times increase in carrier diffusion length compared with the previous best CQD films. As a result, we demonstrate the highest power conversion efficiency (13.3%) reported among CQD solar cells. ; This work was supported by Ontario Research Fund–Research Excellence program (ORF7—Ministry of Research and Innovation, Ontario Research Fund–Research Excellence Round 7), and by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada. This work was also supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT) (NRF-2017R1A2B2009948).
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Altres ajuts: The research of G. Nogales-Gadea, A. Ramos-Fransi, and A. Lucia is funded by Instituto de Salud Carlos III and cofinanced by Fondos FEDER. G. Nogales-Gadea is supported by a Miguel Servet research contract and by a Trampoline Grant #21108 from AFM Telethon. A. Ballester-Lopez is funded by an FI Agaur fellowship and Generalitat de Catalunya. E. Koehorst is funded by the La Caixa Foundation (ID 100010434), fellowship code LCF/BQ/IN18/11660019, cofunded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 713673. I. Linares-Pardo is funded by CP14/00032 and SGR 1520 (GRC) Generalitat de Catalunya. J. Núñez-Manchón was funded by AFM Telethon Trampoline Grant #21108. G. Lucente was supported by a Rio Hortega contract. J. Chojnacki is supported by European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant . The funding bodies had no role in the design of the study and collection, analysis, and interpretation of data. ; We aimed to determine whether 3D imaging reconstruction allows identifying molecular:clinical associations in myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1). We obtained myoblasts from 6 patients with DM1 and 6 controls. We measured cytosine-thymine-guanine (CTG) expansion and detected RNA foci and muscleblind like 1 (MBNL1) through 3D reconstruction. We studied dystrophia myotonica protein kinase (DMPK) expression and splicing alterations of MBNL1, insulin receptor, and sarcoplasmic reticulum Ca(2+)-ATPase 1. Three-dimensional analysis showed that RNA foci (nuclear and/or cytoplasmic) were present in 45%-100% of DM1-derived myoblasts we studied (range: 0-6 foci per cell). RNA foci represented <0.6% of the total myoblast nuclear volume. CTG expansion size was associated with the number of RNA foci per myoblast (r = 0.876 [95% confidence interval 0.222-0.986]) as well as with the number of cytoplasmic RNA foci (r = 0.943 [0.559-0.994]). Although MBNL1 colocalized with RNA foci in all DM1 ...
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INTRODUCTION: Research on disparities in health and health care has demonstrated that social, economic, and political factors are key drivers of poor health outcomes. Yet the role of such structural forces on health and health care has been incorporated unevenly into medical training. The framework of structural competency offers a paradigm for training health professionals to recognize and respond to the impact of upstream, structural factors on patient health and health care. METHODS: We report on a brief, interprofessional structural competency curriculum implemented in 32 distinct instances between 2015 and 2017 throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. In consultation with medical and interprofessional education experts, we developed open-ended, written-response surveys to qualitatively evaluate this curriculum's impact on participants. Qualitative data from 15 iterations were analyzed via directed thematic analysis, coding language, and concepts to identify key themes. RESULTS: Three core themes emerged from analysis of participants' comments. First, participants valued the curriculum's focus on the application of the structural competency framework in real-world clinical, community, and policy contexts. Second, participants with clinical experience (residents, fellows, and faculty) reported that the curriculum helped them reframe how they thought about patients. Third, participants reported feeling reconnected to their original motivations for entering the health professions. DISCUSSION: This structural competency curriculum fills a gap in health professional education by equipping learners to understand and respond to the role that social, economic, and political structural factors play in patient and community health.
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The European CORDEX (EURO-CORDEX) initiative is a large voluntary effort that seeks to advance regional climate and Earth system science in Europe. As part of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) - Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX), it shares the broader goals of providing a model evaluation and climate projection framework and improving communication with both the General Circulation Model (GCM) and climate data user communities. EURO-CORDEX oversees the design and coordination of ongoing ensembles of regional climate projections of unprecedented size and resolution (0.11° EUR-11 and 0.44° EUR-44 domains). Additionally, the inclusion of empirical-statistical downscaling allows investigation of much larger multi-model ensembles. These complementary approaches provide a foundation for scientific studies within the climate research community and others. The value of the EURO-CORDEX ensemble is shown via numerous peer-reviewed studies and its use in the development of climate services. Evaluations of the EUR-44 and EUR-11 ensembles also show the benefits of higher resolution. However, significant challenges remain. To further advance scientific understanding, two flagship pilot studies (FPS) were initiated. The first investigates local-regional phenomena at convection-permitting scales over central Europe and the Mediterranean in collaboration with the Med-CORDEX community. The second investigates the impacts of land cover changes on European climate across spatial and temporal scales. Over the coming years, the EURO-CORDEX community looks forward to closer collaboration with other communities, new advances, supporting international initiatives such as the IPCC reports, and continuing to provide the basis for research on regional climate impacts and adaptation in Europe. ; We acknowledge all participating institutions for their voluntary effort and contribution to EURO-CORDEX. We also thank the developers and maintainers of the ESGF-nodes who make it possible to store and distribute EURO-CORDEX data. S.S. acknowledges the support of NOTUR/NORSTORE projects NN9280K/NS9001K and the Research Council of Norway and its basic institute support of the strategic project on Climate Services. E.K. acknowledges the support of the Greek Research & Technology Network (GRNET) for provision of technical support and facilities (HPC-ARIS). L.S. and I.G. acknowledge the support of Croatian Science Foundation project CARE (2831) and Ministry of Environment and Energy project TF/HR/P3-M1-O1-0101 (www.prilagodba-klimi.hr). J. F. acknowledges support from the Spanish R+D Programme through grant INSIGNIA (CGL2016-79210-R), co-funded by ERDF/FEDER, and the Altamira Supercomputer at Instituto de Física de Cantabria (IFCA-CSIC), member of the Spanish Supercomputing Network. P.T. acknowledges support from the Belgian Science Policy (BELSPO) within the CORDEX.be (BR/143/A2) project, and the VSC (Flemish Supercomputer Center), funded by the Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO) and the Flemish Government – department EWI.M.A.G. acknowledges support from the Spanish R+D Programme through grants CGL2013-47261-R and CGL2017-89583-R, co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund. RF acknowledges support provided by ICHEC (Irish Centre for High End Computing) and the Irish Environmental Protection Agency. K.G. and S.K. gratefully acknowledge the computing time granted through JARA-HPC on the supercomputers JUROPA and JURECA at Forschungszentrum Jülich. M.B. and T.H. acknowledge support by The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports from the Large Infrastructures for Research, Experimental Development and Innovations project "IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Center – LM2015070" and the INTER-EXCELLENCE program LTT17007, and support by Charles University from the PROGRES Q16 program. We acknowledge the approval and support of the two Flagship Pilot Studies (the FPS on Convective phenomena at high resolution over Europe and the Mediterranean and the FPS on Land Use and Climate Across Scales) by WRCP CORDEX. We thank Merja Tölle for providing simulation CCLM5-0-9-JLU as contribution to the CORDEX-FPS "Convective phenomena at high resolution over Europe and the Mediterranean". D. M., M.P., and H.T. gratefully acknowledge the support received via the projects HighEnd:Extremes, SPIRIT, and reclip:convex, funded by the Austrian Climate Research Programme (ACRP) of the Klima- und Energiefonds (nos. B368608, B960272, and B769999, respectively), as well as the Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC) for compute time on JURECA through the grant JJSC39 and the Vienna Scientific Cluster (VSC) through the grants 70992 and 71193
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This research was partially supported by grants FIS PI14/02029 and PI17/01433 (PI: P. A. S.) of the Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, and Fondos Europeos de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER), by the Government of the Principality of Asturias PCTI-2018-2022 IDI/2018/235, by an RYC fellowship (RYC2013-12587) to L.G., and an I+D 2017 grant (SAF2017-85489-P) to L. G. and P. M.-B. Finally, L. F.-T, A. V., and P. M.-B. received a Severo Ochoa grant (PA-17-PF-B16-179, PA-18-PFBP17-177, and PA-20-PF-BP19-014, respectively) supported by the Principado de Asturias government. La Fundación para la Investigación e Innovación Biosanitaria del Principado de Asturias (FINBA) partially supported this study.
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Europe's capacity to explore the envisaged pathways that achieve its near- and long-term energy and climate objectives needs to be significantly enhanced. In this perspective, we discuss how this capacity is supported by energy and climate-economy models, and how international modelling teams are organised within structured communication channels and consortia as well as coordinate multi-model analyses to provide robust scientific evidence. Noting the lack of such a dedicated channel for the highly active yet currently fragmented European modelling landscape, we highlight the importance of transparency of modelling capabilities and processes, harmonisation of modelling parameters, disclosure of input and output datasets, interlinkages among models of different geographic granularity, and employment of models that transcend the highly harmonised core of tools used in model inter-comparisons. Finally, drawing from the COVID-19 pandemic, we discuss the need to expand the modelling comfort zone, by exploring extreme scenarios, disruptive innovations, and questions that transcend the energy and climate goals across the sustainability spectrum. A comprehensive and comprehensible multi-model framework offers a real example of "collective" science diplomacy, as an instrument to further support the ambitious goals of the EU Green Deal, in compliance with the EU claim to responsible research. ; This work was supported by the H2020 European Commission Projects "PARIS REINFORCE" under Grant Agreement No. 820846, "LOCOMOTION" under Grant Agreement No. 821105, "SENTINEL" under Grant Agreement No. 837089, and "NAVIGATE" under Grant Agreement No. 821124. The sole responsibility for the content of this paper lies with the authors; the paper does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the European Commission.
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Control over carrier type and doping levels in semiconductor materials is key for optoelectronic applications. In colloidal quantum dots (CQDs), these properties can be tuned by surface chemistry modification, but this has so far been accomplished at the expense of reduced surface passivation and compromised colloidal solubility; this has precluded the realization of advanced architectures such as CQD bulk homojunction solids. Here we introduce a cascade surface modification scheme that overcomes these limitations. This strategy provides control over doping and solubility and enables n-type and p-type CQD inks that are fully miscible in the same solvent with complete surface passivation. This enables the realization of homogeneous CQD bulk homojunction films that exhibit a 1.5 times increase in carrier diffusion length compared with the previous best CQD films. As a result, we demonstrate the highest power conversion efficiency (13.3%) reported among CQD solar cells. ; This work was supported by Ontario Research Fund–Research Excellence program (ORF7—Ministry of Research and Innovation, Ontario Research Fund–Research Excellence Round 7), and by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada. This work was also supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT) (NRF- 2017R1A2B2009948). The authors acknowledge the financial support from QD Solar Inc.
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