European Commission-funded Project Research Articles

Experimental study of the impact of blade-tip mounted rotors on the X-Rotor vertical-axis wind turbine

The Horizon 2020 European Commission-funded project - X-ROTOR - proposes a radical rethink of the traditional vertical-axis wind turbine geometry. The X-Rotor vertical axis wind turbine relies on blade-tip mounted rotors, referred to as secondary rotors, for power generation and takeoff. This study examines the aerodynamic effects of secondary rotors on a scaled X-Rotor model’s loading in an open-jet wind tunnel. Particle image velocimetry measurements are taken at two cross-stream planes within the volume of rotation of a scaled turbine model at two phase-locked positions. The measurements are compared with cases without secondary rotors present to understand the local impact of the blade-tip mounted devices on the wake and vortex strengths. The results indicate an accelerated turbulent diffusion of the trailing tip-vortex of the X-Rotor, and the subsequent local in-plane velocity gradients induced by the trailing tip-vortex are diminished. These insights and experimental database contribute to the development and validation of numerical models of the X-Rotor with blade-tip mounted rotors.

Nature-based social interventions for people experiencing loneliness: the rationale and overview of the RECETAS project

ABSTRACT Loneliness is a major social concern with health consequences worldwide for populations across different demographic, cultural, social, economic, geographic, and environmental contexts. In March 2021, we launched Horizon 2020 European Commission-funded project, ‘Reimagining Environments for Connection and Engagement: Testing Actions for Social Prescribing in Natural Spaces (RECETAS)’ to reduce loneliness and promote health-related quality of life. In this paper, we present the project logic model, informed by stakeholder input, that aims to guide the initiative from its design and implementation to its evaluation in six cities across three continents, including Europe (Barcelona, Helsinki, Marseille, Prague), Australia (Melbourne), and South America (Cuenca). This model is being used to guide the implementation and evaluation of nature-based social prescribing interventions. Process and outcome measures will be used to compare outcomes in different settings and population contexts. The use of a logic model with stakeholder input ensures that the interventions are responsive to local needs, sustainable, and transferable to other geographic, social, economic, and cultural contexts. Knowledge translation will be central to maximising impacts on population health, civil society, and health and social systems in urban areas.

Digital Storytelling Approach for Environmental Challenges and the Early School Leaving Prevention

Given the rapidly evolving nature of the labour market, it is crucial to develop individuals' soft skills to ensure effective job performance. To achieve this, teaching methods should prioritize the development of soft skills among students. One such instructional method is digital storytelling, which has been recognized as an essential tool for developing future workforce skills such as creativity, critical thinking, digital literacy, and communication skills. Two European Commission-funded projects under the Erasmus Plus Programme that utilize digital storytelling in education and training to help individuals and organizations adapt to the digital age are presented in the paper as examples of initiatives promoting this approach: The BIG_GAME and the Digital Stories.

Addressing adverse synergies between chemical and biological pollutants at schools-The 'SynAir-G' hypothesis.

While the number and types of indoor air pollutants is rising, much is suspected but little is known about the impact of their potentially synergistic interactions, upon human health. Gases, particulate matter, organic compounds but also allergens and viruses, fall within the 'pollutant' definition. Distinct populations, such as children and allergy and asthma sufferers are highly susceptible, while a low socioeconomic background is a further susceptibility factor; however, no specific guidance is available. We spend most of our time indoors; for children, the school environment is of paramount importance and potentially amenable to intervention. The interactions between some pollutant classes have been studied. However, a lot is missing with respect to understanding interactions between specific pollutants of different classes in terms of concentrations, timing and sequence, to improve targeting and upgrade standards. SynAir-G is a European Commission-funded project aiming to reveal and quantify synergistic interactions between different pollutants affecting health, from mechanisms to real life, focusing on the school setting. It will develop a comprehensive and responsive multipollutant monitoring system, advance environmentally friendly interventions, and disseminate the generated knowledge to relevant stakeholders in accessible and actionable formats. The aim of this article it to put forward the SynAir-G hypothesis, and describe its background and objectives.

The EUROVOLC citizen-science tool: collecting volcano observations from Europe

During the European Commission-funded project EUROVOLC, our team has created an interactive webpage to collect citizen-science observations of volcanic events, and to visualise, map and download previously collected data.

P01-13 A pilot study benchmarking physical activity policy actions in Europe: Lessons learned from the CO-CREATE project

BackgroundGlobal research shows a strong link between physical activity and risk of developing non-communicable diseases. To increase physical activity levels, governments must design and implement a comprehensive set of policy actions across a range of areas. To aid governments in this process, the MOVING benchmarking tool was developed to assess the design and strength of countries' policies in promoting physical activity, as well as gaps in policy action.MethodsThe MOVING benchmarking tool was developed using a consultative process that reviewed evidence on physical activity policy design, existing benchmarking tools and built on the policy areas of the MOVING framework. The tool values the strength of policy design based on policy attributes that are evidence-based and aspirational - regardless of whether any countries have implemented them. The tool was applied to a set of physical activity policies from five countries participating in? CO-CREATE?, a European Commission-funded project: Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal and UK. Physical activity policies that are currently implemented in these countries were identified based on a comprehensive country scan, with a set methodology. A set of policies from each country corresponding to benchmarks on access to quality public open space and green spaces and community and mass participation initiatives were analysed. The policies were assessed by applying the benchmark corresponding to the relevant policy areaResultsThe benchmarking tools easily identified the strengths and weaknesses in the design of each policy. Thus, the benchmarking tool identified where there was scope for improvement in specific policy area for each country, such as walking and cycling infrastructure and active transport. It also allowed comparisons between countries for specific policy areas. Further, by allowing a fast assessment of many physical activity policies, the benchmarking tool enabled an analysis of the interplay of single policies and draw conclusions about the overall policy environment in the selected countries.ConclusionThe MOVING benchmarking tool can inform the development and implementation of policies which promote physical activity. It can be used by government policy-makers, researchers and civil society organisations to identify areas of physical activity policy that require government action. The scores generated by the benchmarking tool will be amalgamated into an overall policy index for 27 European countries.

Deconstructing the challenges and opportunities for blended learning in the post emergency learning era

ABSTRACT This paper, as part of a European Commission-funded project entitled REBEL (Repurposing Education through Blended Learning), deconstructs school communities understanding of the challenges and opportunities for blended learning in the school sector in Ireland with perceptions shaped by experiences of enforced school closures during the pandemic. It provides an overview of five case studies in primary and post-primary schools in Ireland. The findings from this research indicate that the emergency remote teaching experience has cast an unhelpful shadow on blended learning. To avoid stigmatising online teaching and learning based on less than ideal experiences, in spring 2020, Hodges and co-authors referred to this period as ‘emergency remote teaching.’ (Hodges et al., 2020). Perhaps blended learning is also the victim of a similar stigmatising effect. The paper makes several contributions, including a need to differentiate between blended learning, emergency remote teaching and the suite of additional factors that impacted the school closure experience for teachers and schools. In addition, the findings signpost some succinct questions for consideration, that is, what conditions, social, cognitive, and teacher presence, resources and supports are necessary for effective intentional blended learning in schools.

Blue Pencil


 
 
 This article aims at analyzing and discussing the proposed objectives and outcomes of a transmedia project that was run in partnership with CICANT/Universidade Lusófona, in Lisbon, Portugal, and the Portuguese media group Impresa, as part of a European Commission-funded project named CIAKL-Cinema and Industry Alliance for Knowledge and Learning. The Blue Pencil project had as its main objective the development of a transmedia narrative that grouped different platforms and technologies, which included intersections inside the narrative within the genres of entertainment and education. Taking as its central theme the censorship in Portugal during the Estado Novo, the narrative extends into a short fiction film, a documentary, a site with archive material, an online game that challenges writing on freedom of the press, an online store, and a school program, in partnership with the network of school libraries, to launch the debate of censorship in schools.
 
 

Benchmarking physical activity and nutrition policies in Europe: lessons from the CO-CREATE project

Abstract Background Global research shows a strong link between physical activity, nutrition and the risk of developing non-communicable diseases. To increase physical activity and healthy eating, governments must design and implement a comprehensive set of policy actions across a range of areas. The MOVING and NOURISHING benchmarking tools were developed to identify gaps and assess the strength of actions taken by national governments in these complex policy areas. Methods The benchmarking tools value the strength of policy design based on policy attributes that are evidence-informed and aspirational. Both tools were applied to five countries participating in CO-CREATE, a European Commission-funded project: Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal and UK. Physical activity and nutrition policies in each of these countries were identified based on a comprehensive country scan, with a set methodology. Results The benchmarks assessed the strengths and weaknesses in the design of policies across the NOURISHING and MOVING policy areas. They identified where there was scope for improvement within a policy area. For example, the tools helped evaluate the design of health related-food taxes in Norway, Poland, Portugal, and UK and allowed a cross-country comparison of these policies. When comparing the overall policy environment across all countries, we found an overall lack of policies promoting access to open/green spaces and weaknesses in designing restrictions on marketing unhealthy foods to children. Conclusions The benchmarking tools can inform the development and implementation of policies which promote physical activity and healthy eating. They were developed for the European context but are also being tested on relevant policies in South Africa. They can be used by governments, policymakers, researchers and civil society to identify areas of physical activity and nutrition policy that are weak and require government action. Key messages Benchmarking nutrition and physical activity policy can identify gaps and assess the strength of actions taken by national governments in these complex policy areas. The NOURISHING and MOVING benchmarking tools can be used by governments, policymakers, researchers and civil society various to inform policy-making in nutrition and physical activity.

Explainable Artificial Intelligence for Developing Smart Cities Solutions

Traditional Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies used in developing smart cities solutions, Machine Learning (ML) and recently Deep Learning (DL), rely more on utilising best representative training datasets and features engineering and less on the available domain expertise. We argue that such an approach to solution development makes the outcome of solutions less explainable, i.e., it is often not possible to explain the results of the model. There is a growing concern among policymakers in cities with this lack of explainability of AI solutions, and this is considered a major hindrance in the wider acceptability and trust in such AI-based solutions. In this work, we survey the concept of ‘explainable deep learning’ as a subset of the ‘explainable AI’ problem and propose a new solution using Semantic Web technologies, demonstrated with a smart cities flood monitoring application in the context of a European Commission-funded project. Monitoring of gullies and drainage in crucial geographical areas susceptible to flooding issues is an important aspect of any flood monitoring solution. Typical solutions for this problem involve the use of cameras to capture images showing the affected areas in real-time with different objects such as leaves, plastic bottles etc., and building a DL-based classifier to detect such objects and classify blockages based on the presence and coverage of these objects in the images. In this work, we uniquely propose an Explainable AI solution using DL and Semantic Web technologies to build a hybrid classifier. In this hybrid classifier, the DL component detects object presence and coverage level and semantic rules designed with close consultation with experts carry out the classification. By using the expert knowledge in the flooding context, our hybrid classifier provides the flexibility on categorising the image using objects and their coverage relationships. The experimental results demonstrated with a real-world use case showed that this hybrid approach of image classification has on average 11% improvement (F-Measure) in image classification performance compared to DL-only classifier. It also has the distinct advantage of integrating experts’ knowledge on defining the decision-making rules to represent the complex circumstances and using such knowledge to explain the results.

Are vaccine shortages a relevant public health issue in Europe?

Abstract Background National immunisation programmes depend on an adequate supply of vaccines but shortages have become more frequent globally in recent years. Vaccine shortages can lead to missed opportunities for vaccination and a greater risk of occurrence of vaccine-preventable diseases (VPD). Methods The EU-Joint Action on Vaccination is a European Commission-funded project* which aims to strengthen cooperation between European countries against VPDs, including improvement of vaccine supply and preparedness. In this context, from February to May 2019, we conducted a survey amongst persons in charge of national immunisation programmes or of vaccine supply/procurement in EU/EEA, to collect information on vaccine shortages in the previous three years. Results Twenty-one of 28 invited countries responded, of which 19 reported at least one shortage, for a total of 115 shortage events. The median number of shortages per country was 5 (range 0-15). At the time of survey completion, there were ongoing shortages in six countries. DT/dt-containing combination vaccines, hepatitis A, hepatitis B and BCG vaccines were the most frequently involved vaccines. Supply and production issues, and global shortage, were the most frequent causes. Median duration of shortages was five months; 34% caused a disruption in immunization services. Procurement and purchase methods varied by country. Only half of countries have recommendations or procedures in place to address shortages. Conclusions Vaccine shortages are a serious public health issue in the EU. Causes are complex and multifaceted and more research is needed to understand the economic and market-related causes. Improved communication between public health authorities, manufacturers and regulatory agencies is essential. Procurement and tender mechanisms should be improved. In case of vaccine shortages, all countries should have procedures or recommendation in place regarding the use of alternative vaccines or vaccination schedules. Key messages Vaccine shortages are a relevant public health issue in the EU. More research is needed on the complex and multifaceted causes of vaccine shortages. Timely communication between supply and demand is needed and procurement and tender mechanisms should be improved.

Artistic Research in the SATORI Common Ethical Framework

It is well known that academic research which includes human participants undergoes an ethical review which, in many countries today, includes all academic disciplines and not only medical science. But what about those disciplines with the least experience of ethical codes for research, such as the visual and performing arts? How are they defined and positioned in ethical codes and guidelines that are intended to apply to all disciplines? What are the challenges to ethical frameworks which aim to be inclusive of the visual and performing arts? This article examines the European Commission-funded SATORI project (Stakeholders Acting Together On the ethical impact assessment of Research and Innovation) in its aim to produce the first comprehensive, international standard for the ethical assessment of research in all fields including the arts.

Biological Contamination Prevention for Outer Solar System Moons of Astrobiological Interest: What Do We Need to Know?

To ensure that scientific investments in space exploration are not compromised by terrestrial contamination of celestial bodies, special care needs to be taken to preserve planetary conditions for future astrobiological exploration. Significant effort has been made and is being taken to address planetary protection in the context of inner Solar System exploration. In particular for missions to Mars, detailed internationally accepted guidelines have been established. For missions to the icy moons in the outer Solar System, Europa and Enceladus, the planetary protection requirements are so far based on a probabilistic approach and a conservative estimate of poorly known parameters. One objective of the European Commission-funded project, Planetary Protection of Outer Solar System, was to assess the existing planetary protection approach, to identify inherent knowledge gaps, and to recommend scientific investigations necessary to update the requirements for missions to the icy moons.

Age-Friendly Standards Around ICT

As the European population ages, there is an escalating need for age-friendly standards to support development of effective products and services involving information and communication technologies (ICT), thereby improving usability for all consumers, including older people. Co-production with users through inclusive and participatory processes provides several benefits to standardization, including enhanced understanding of market needs, clearer identification and mitigation of risks, and increased legitimacy of the standards developed. Ideally, co-production includes users from a range of backgrounds. However, older people, especially those aged over 80 years, are often the least likely in the population to be involved. This paper reports on barriers and challenges to inclusive co-production from the perspectives of a range of stakeholders participating in the European Commission-funded project PROGRESSIVE: Progressive Standards around ICT for Active and Healthy Ageing. It identifies potential ways to improve the participation of older people in the co-production of standards.

Why could meditation practice help promote mental health and well-being in aging?

Psycho-affective states or traits such as stress, depression, anxiety and neuroticism are known to affect sleep, cognition and mental health and well-being in aging populations and to be associated with increased risk for Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Mental training for stress reduction and emotional and attentional regulation through meditation practice might help reduce these adverse factors. So far, studies on the impact of meditation practice on brain and cognition in aging are scarce and have limitations but the findings are encouraging, showing a positive effect of meditation training on cognition, especially on attention and memory, and on brain structure and function especially in frontal and limbic structures and insula. In line with this, we showed in a pilot study that gray matter volume and/or glucose metabolism was higher in six older adult expert meditators compared to 67 age-matched controls in the prefrontal, anterior and posterior cingulate cortex, insula and temporo-parietal junction. These preliminary findings are important in the context of reserve and brain maintenance as they suggest that long-term meditation practice might help preserve brain structure and function from progressive age-related decline. Further studies are needed to confirm these results with larger samples and in randomized controlled trials and to investigate the mechanisms underlying these meditation-related effects. The European Commission-funded project Silver Santé Study will address these challenges by studying 316 older adults including 30 expert meditators and 286 meditation-naïve participants (either cognitively normal or with subjective cognitive decline). Two randomized controlled trials will be conducted to assess the effects of 2-month and 18-month meditation, English learning or health education training programs (versus a passive control) on behavioral, sleep, blood sampling and neuroimaging measures. This European research initiative illustrates the progressive awareness of the benefit of such non-pharmacological approaches in the prevention of dementia and the relevance of taking into account the psycho-affective dimension in endeavoring to improve mental health and well-being of older adults.

Health beliefs, healing practices and medico-ritual frameworks in the Ecuadorian Andes: the continuity of an ancient tradition

ABSTRACT This paper introduces the European Commission-funded project ‘MEDICINE: Indigenous Concepts of Health and Healing in Andean Populations’, which takes a time-depth perspective to its subject, and uses a framework of interdisciplinary methods which integrates archaeological-historical, ethnographic and modern health sciences approaches. The long-term study objective is ultimately to offer novel perspectives and methods in the global agenda to develop policies sensitive to indigenous, refugee and migrant people’s social, economic and health needs, as well as culturally sensitive approaches to the conservation of their ‘intangible cultural heritage’. This paper focuses on the project’s first phase, the critical examination of archaeological and ethnohistorical evidence and accounts from contemporary indigenous practitioners of Andean Traditional Medicine. These sources then shape the development of health beliefs and practices models which have informed the development of questionnaires for the second ‘survey’ phase of three indigenous Andean populations in the Central Sierra region of Ecuador.

Development of a core outcome set for medication review in older patients with multimorbidity and polypharmacy: a study protocol.

BackgroundMedication review has been advocated to address the challenge of polypharmacy in older patients, yet there is no consensus on how best to evaluate its efficacy. Heterogeneity of outcomes reported in clinical trials can hinder the comparison of clinical trial findings in systematic reviews. Moreover, the outcomes that matter most to older patients might be under-reported or disregarded altogether. A core outcome set can address this issue as it defines a minimum set of outcomes that should be reported in all clinical trials in any particular field of research. As part of the European Commission-funded project, called OPtimising thERapy to prevent Avoidable hospital admissions in the Multimorbid elderly, this paper describes the methods used to develop a core outcome set for clinical trials of medication review in older patients with multimorbidity.Methods/designThe study was designed in several steps. First, a systematic review established which outcomes were measured in published and ongoing clinical trials of medication review in older patients. Second, we undertook semistructured interviews with older patients and carers aimed at identifying additional relevant outcomes. Then, a multilanguage European Delphi survey adapted to older patients was designed. The international Delphi survey was conducted with older patients, health care professionals, researchers, and clinical experts in geriatric pharmacotherapy to validate outcomes to be included in the core outcome set. Consensus meetings were conducted to validate the results.DiscussionWe present the method for developing a core outcome set for medication review in older patients with multimorbidity. This study protocol could be used as a basis to develop core outcome sets in other fields of geriatric research.

Can Phosphate Salts Recovered from Manure Replace Conventional Phosphate Fertilizer?

Pig farming produces more manure than can reasonably be spread onto surrounding fields, particularly in regions with high livestock densities and limited land availability. Nutrient recycling offers an attractive solution for dealing with manure excesses and is one main objective of the European commission-funded project “BioEcoSIM”. Phosphate salts (“P-Salt”) were recovered from the separated liquid manure fraction. The solid fraction was dried and carbonized to biochar. This study compared the fertilizing performance of P-Salt and conventional phosphate fertilizer and determined whether additional biochar application further increased biomass yields. The fertilizers and biochar were tested in pot experiments with spring barley and faba beans using two nutrient-poor soils. The crops were fertilized with P-Salt at three levels and biochar in two concentrations. Biomass yield was determined after six weeks. Plant and soil samples were analysed for nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium contents. The P-Salt had similar or even better effects than mineral fertilizer on growth in both crops and soils. Slow release of nutrients can prevent leaching, rendering P-Salt a particularly suitable fertilizer for light sandy soils. Biochar can enhance its fertilizing effect, but the underlying mechanisms need further investigation. These novel products are concluded to be promising candidates for efficient fertilization strategies.

Europeana Newspapers: searching digitized historical newspapers from 23 European countries

Europeana Newspapers is a European Commission-funded project which is refining, aggregating and giving researchers online access to historical newspaper content from 23 European libraries. It also offers free, open source tools which individual libraries can use to assess refinement quality and metadata standards in relation to their own digital newspaper collections. The content made available by the project is available both through Europeana and a dedicated newspaper browser. Europeana is a way to see the newspapers in the context of over 30 million other items of cultural heritage, while the dedicated browser hosted on The European Library site gives researchers the possibility to refine their search terms (e.g. by date, publishing country, issue) and to search the full text of many newspapers. So far, the browser, which has been online for approximately one year, has proven popular with researchers, and further improvements to its functionality are planned in 2015. This could include the ability for users to tag articles or to edit, and help correct, the full text of individual articles.

Raising the political profile of the neglected zoonotic diseases: three complementary European commission-funded projects to streamline research, build capacity and advocate for control.

Raising the political profile of the neglected zoonotic diseases: three complementary European commission-funded projects to streamline research, build capacity and advocate for control.