Network Of Excellence Research Articles

Electrochemical performances of PEM water electrolysis cells and perspectives

Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) water electrolysis is potentially interesting for the decentralized production of hydrogen from renewable energy sources. The European Commission (EC) is actively supporting different projects within the 6th and 7th Framework Programmes. The purpose of this paper is to provide a summary of most significant scientific and technological achievements obtained at the end of the GenHyPEM project (FP6, 2005–2008), and to discuss future perspectives. Using carbon-supported platinum at the cathode for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and iridium at the anode for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), efficient membrane – electrode assemblies have been prepared and characterized using cyclic voltametry and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. Charge densities and impedances of lab-scale PEM cells have been measured and used as references to optimize the performances of a GenHy®1000 PEM water electrolyser (1 Nm3 H2/h) and then to extend the production capacity up to 5 Nm3 H2/h. Different non-noble electrocatalysts have been successfully tested to replace platinum at the cathode. Some current limitations and future perspectives of the technology are outlined and discussed.

International disease monitoring, April to June

African swine fever in the Caucasus regionLower-risk zone for bluetongue serotype 8 implemented in Great BritainOutbreaks of equine infectious anaemia in Belgium; new legislation in RomaniaWidespread foot-and-mouth disease epizootic in...

Heterogeneity prevails: the state of clinical trial data management in Europe - results of a survey of ECRIN centres

BackgroundThe use of Clinical Data Management Systems (CDMS) has become essential in clinical trials to handle the increasing amount of data that must be collected and analyzed. With a CDMS trial data are captured at investigator sites with "electronic Case Report Forms". Although more and more of these electronic data management systems are used in academic research centres an overview of CDMS products and of available data management and quality management resources for academic clinical trials in Europe is missing.MethodsThe ECRIN (European Clinical Research Infrastructure Network) data management working group conducted a two-part standardized survey on data management, software tools, and quality management for clinical trials. The questionnaires were answered by nearly 80 centres/units (with an overall response rate of 47% and 43%) from 12 European countries and EORTC.ResultsOur survey shows that about 90% of centres have a CDMS in routine use. Of these CDMS nearly 50% are commercial systems; Open Source solutions don't play a major role. In general, solutions used for clinical data management are very heterogeneous: 20 different commercial CDMS products (7 Open Source solutions) in addition to 17/18 proprietary systems are in use. The most widely employed CDMS products are MACRO™ and Capture System™, followed by solutions that are used in at least 3 centres: eResearch Network™, CleanWeb™, GCP Base™ and SAS™. Although quality management systems for data management are in place in most centres/units, there exist some deficits in the area of system validation.ConclusionsBecause the considerable heterogeneity of data management software solutions may be a hindrance to cooperation based on trial data exchange, standards like CDISC (Clinical Data Interchange Standard Consortium) should be implemented more widely. In a heterogeneous environment the use of data standards can simplify data exchange, increase the quality of data and prepare centres for new developments (e.g. the use of EHR for clinical research). Because data management and the use of electronic data capture systems in clinical trials are characterized by the impact of regulations and guidelines, ethical concerns are discussed. In this context quality management becomes an important part of compliant data management. To address these issues ECRIN will establish certified data centres to support electronic data management and associated compliance needs of clinical trial centres in Europe.

The Value of National Diabetes Registries: SEARCH for Diabetes in Youth Study

Diabetes mellitus is one of the most common severe chronic diseases of childhood. Much of our knowledge of the epidemiology of diabetes in young people has been generated by large collaborative efforts based on standardized registry data, such as the DIAMOND Project worldwide and the EURODIAB study in Europe. These registries showed that although at the start of the 20th century childhood diabetes was rare, by the end of the century a steady increase in incidence had been reported in many parts of the world. However, epidemiologic data for temporal trends in pediatric diabetes are still lacking or are minimal for most of the global population of youth, including in the United States. In addition, the epidemiology of diabetes in youth is changing. As youth are becoming increasingly overweight, we are seeing more obese children with a clinical phenotype of type 2 diabetes or "adult-onset" diabetes. It is imperative that efforts directed at surveillance of diabetes in young people continue and expand, not only to understand its complex etiology, but also because of its increasing public health importance.

Execution Management for Mobile Service-Oriented Environments

This paper presents an Execution Management System (EMS) for Grid services that builds on the Open Grid Services Architecture (OGSA) while achieving “mobile awareness” by establishing a WS-Notification mechanism with mobile network session middleware. It builds heavily on the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), used for managing sessions with mobile terminals (such as laptops and PDAs) where the services are running. Although the management of mobile services is different to that of ubiquitous services, the enhanced EMS manages both of them in a seamless fashion and incorporates all resources into one Mobile Dynamic Virtual Organization (MDVO). The described EMS has been implemented within the framework of the Akogrimo EU IST project and has been used to support mission critical application scenarios in public demonstrations, including composite and distributed applications made of both ubiquitous and mobile services within multiple domains.

A vision and strategy for the virtual physiological human in 2010 and beyond.

European funding under framework 7 (FP7) for the virtual physiological human (VPH) project has been in place now for nearly 2 years. The VPH network of excellence (NoE) is helping in the development of common standards, open-source software, freely accessible data and model repositories, and various training and dissemination activities for the project. It is also helping to coordinate the many clinically targeted projects that have been funded under the FP7 calls. An initial vision for the VPH was defined by framework 6 strategy for a European physiome (STEP) project in 2006. It is now time to assess the accomplishments of the last 2 years and update the STEP vision for the VPH. We consider the biomedical science, healthcare and information and communications technology challenges facing the project and we propose the VPH Institute as a means of sustaining the vision of VPH beyond the time frame of the NoE.

Benchmark exercise on risk assessment methods applied to a virtual hydrogen refuelling station

A benchmarking exercise on quantitative risk assessment (QRA) methodologies for hydrogen safety has been conducted within the project HyQRA, under the framework of the European Network of Excellence (NoE), HySafe. The aim of the exercise was twofold: (i) to identify the differences and similarities in approaches in a QRA and their results for a hydrogen installation and (ii) to identify knowledge gaps in the various steps and parameters underlying the risk quantification of hydrogen safety.First, a reference case was defined for the benchmark: a virtual hydrogen refuelling station (HRS) in virtual surroundings comprising housing, school, shops and other vulnerable objects. For the study, a two phase approach was followed.In phase 1, all nine partners were requested to conduct a QRA according to their usual approach and experience. Basically, participants were free to define representative release cases, to apply models and frequency assessments according their own methodology, and to present risk according to their usual format. To enable inter-comparison, a required set of results data was prescribed, like distances to specific thermal radiation levels from fires and distances to specific overpressure levels. Moreover, complete documentation of assumptions, base data and references was to be reported.It was not surprising that a wide range of results was obtained, both in the applied approaches as well as in the quantitative outcomes and conclusions. This made it difficult to identify exactly which assumptions and parameters were responsible for the differences in results.These results provided the basis for a more guided QRA, the second phase. This phase 2 was defined in which the QRA was determined by a more limited number of release cases (scenarios). The partners in the project agreed to assess specific scenarios in order to identify the differences in consequence assessment approaches. The results of this phase provide a better understanding of the influence of modelling assumptions and limitations on the eventual conclusions with regard to risk to on-site people and to the off-site public.

Integration of experimental facilities: A joint effort for establishing a common knowledge base in experimental work on hydrogen safety

In the area of hydrogen safety, research facilities are essential for the experimental investigation of relevant phenomena, for testing devices and safety concepts, as well as for the generation of validation data for the various numerical codes and models. Within the framework of the European HySafe Network of Excellence (NoE), the ‘Integration of Experimental Facilities (IEF)’ activity has provided basic support for joint experimental work. Even beyond the funding period of the HySafe NoE in the 6th Framework Program, IEF represents a long-lasting effort for the sustainable integration of experimental research capacities and expertise of the partners from different research fields. In order to achieve a high standard in the quality of experimental data provided by the partners, emphasis was put on the know-how transfer between the partners. On the one hand, documentation on the experimental capacities was prepared and analyzed. On the other hand, a wiki-based communication platform was established, supported by biannual workshops covering topics ranging from measurement technologies to safety issues. Based on the partners’ contributions, a working document was created on best practice including the joint experimental knowledge of all partners with regard to experimental set-ups and instrumentation. The paper gives an overview of the IEF partners and the network activities over the last five years.

Consequence assessment of the BBC H2 refuelling station using the ADREA-HF code

Within the framework of the internal project HyQRA of the HYSAFE Network of Excellence (NoE), funded by the European Commission (EC), the participating partners were requested to apply their Quantitative Risk Assessment (QRA) methodologies on a predefined hypothetical gaseous H2 refuelling station named BBC (Benchmark Base Case). The overall aim of the HyQRA project was to perform an inter-comparison of the various QRA approaches and to identify the knowledge gaps on data and information needed in the QRA steps specifically related to H2. Partners NCSRD and UNIPI collaborated on a common QRA. UNIPI identified the hazards on site, selected the most critical ones, defined the events that could be the primary cause of an accident and provided to NCSRD the scenarios listed in risk order for the evaluation of the consequences. NCSRD performed the quantitative analysis using the ADREA-HF CFD code. The predicted risk assessment parameters (flammable H2 mass and volume time histories and maximum horizontal and vertical distances of the LFL from the source) were provided to UNIPI to analyze the consequences and to evaluate the risk and distances of damage. In total 15 scenarios were simulated. Five of them were H2 releases in confined ventilated spaces (inside the compression and the purification/drying buildings). The remaining 10 scenarios were releases in open/semi-confined spaces (in the storage cabinet, storage bank and refuelling hose of one dispenser). This paper presents the CFD methodology applied for the quantitative analysis of the common UNIPI/NCSRD QRA and discusses the results obtained from the performed calculations.

Veterinary education for global animal and public health, D.A. Walsh : book review

This 28th annual volume published by the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), addresses the need for a global shift in the way veterinary students are taught veterinary public health (VPH). As well as taking the lead in prevention and control of animal diseases, the OIE develops health and welfare standards to promote food security and equitable international trade in animals and animal products.

Comparing national and global data collection systems for reporting, outbreaks of H5N1 HPAI

Determining if outbreak data collected by regional or international organizations can reflect patterns observed in more detailed data collected by national veterinary services is a necessary first step if global databases are to be used for making inference about determinants of disease maintenance and spread and for emergency planning and response. We compared two data sources that capture spatial and temporal information about H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza outbreaks reported since 2004 in four countries: Bangladesh, Egypt, Turkey, and Vietnam. One data source consisted of reports collected as part of each country's national veterinary services surveillance program, while the other data source included reports collected using the Emergency Prevention System for Priority Animal and Plant Pests and Diseases (EMPRES-i) global animal health information system. We computed Spearman rank-order correlation statistics to compare spatial and temporal outbreak distributions, and applied a space–time permutation test to check for consistency between the two data sources. Although EMPRES-i typically captured fewer outbreaks than detailed national reporting data, the overall similarity in space and time, particularly after 2006, reflect the ability of the EMPRES-i system to portray disease patterns comparable to those observed in national data sets. Specifically, we show that the two datasets exhibit higher positive correlations in outbreak timing and reported locations after 2006 when compared to December 2003 through 2006. Strengthening the capacity of global systems to acquire data from national and regional databases will improve global analysis efforts and increase the ability of such systems to rapidly alert countries and the international community of potential disease threats.

International disease monitoring, January to March

African swine fever outbreaks in the Caucasus regionEquine infectious anaemia in the UK, Belgium, France and GermanyFoot-and-mouth disease in dairy cattle in South Korea, a country previously officially free without...

Approaching the rights management interoperability problem using intelligent brokerage mechanisms

The digital content industry is facing significant challenges. One of the most significant challenges is the Intellectual Property protection. This challenge has been addressed technologically by using Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems that on a first stage ensured the appropriate management over digital content. However, rights management systems, as they are today, are completely non-interoperable, creating immense problems to the digital content final users. Perhaps one of the biggest problems is the fact that the same digital content that is governed by different rights management systems cannot be exchanged between different rights governance systems. This paper presents some of the work that has been performed under the framework of the VISNET-II Network of Excellence (NoE) to address some of the rights management systems interoperability problems. The approach followed by the proposed work consists on the usage of service description and service-oriented architectures as a mean to create a common and interoperable environment between the different systems.

HySafe SBEP-V20: Numerical studies of release experiments inside a naturally ventilated residential garage

This work presents the results of the Standard Benchmark Exercise Problem (SBEP) V20 of Work Package 6 (WP6) of HySafe Network of Excellence (NoE), co-funded by the European Commission, in the frame of evaluating the quality and suitability of codes, models and user practices by comparative assessments of code results. The benchmark problem SBEP-V20 covers release scenarios that were experimentally investigated in the past using helium as a substitute to hydrogen. The aim of the experimental investigations was to determine the ventilation requirements for parking hydrogen fuelled vehicles in residential garages. Helium was released under the vehicle for 2 h with 7.200 l/h flow rate. The leak rate corresponded to a 20% drop of the peak power of a 50 kW fuel cell vehicle. Three double vent garage door geometries are considered in this numerical investigation. In each case the vents are located at the top and bottom of the garage door. The vents vary only in height. In the first case, the height of the vents is 0.063 m, in the second 0.241 m and in the third 0.495 m. Four HySafe partners participated in this benchmark. The following CFD packages with the respective models were applied to simulate the experiments: ADREA-HF using k–ɛ model by partner NCSRD, FLACS using k–ɛ model by partner DNV, FLUENT using k–ɛ model by partner UPM and CFX using laminar and the low-Re number SST model by partner JRC. This study compares the results predicted by the partners to the experimental measurements at four sensor locations inside the garage with an attempt to assess and validate the performance of the different numerical approaches.

International disease monitoring, October to December 2009

African swine fever outbreaks in the Caucasus region, and one in the Leningrad regionBluetongue virus serotype 4 (BTV-4) outbreaks in Morocco and Tunisia pose a threat to Spain and PortugalFeral...

Integrating Human Health into Environmental Impact Assessment: Case Studies of Canada’s Northern Mining Resource Sector

This paper examines the integration of human health considerations into environmental impact assessment (EIA) in the Canadian North. Emphasis is placed on the northern mining sector, where more land has been staked in the past decade than in the previous 50 years combined. Using information from interviews with northern EIA and health practitioners and reviews of selected project documents, we examined three principal mining case studies, northern Saskatchewan uranium mining operations, the Ekati diamond project, and the Voisey’s Bay mine/mill project, to determine whether and how health considerations in EIA have evolved and the current nature and scope of health integration. Results suggest that despite the recognized link between environment and health and the number of high-profile megaprojects in Canada’s North, human health, particularly social health, has not been given adequate treatment in northern EIA. Health considerations in EIA have typically been limited to physical health impacts triggered directly by project-induced environmental change, while social and other health determinants have been either not considered at all, or limited to those aspects of health and well-being that the project proponent directly controlled, namely employment opportunities and worker health and safety. In recent years, we have been seeing improvements in the scope of health in EIA to reflect a broader range of health determinants, including traditional land use and culture. However, there is still a need to adopt impact mitigation and enhancement measures that are sensitive to northern society, to monitor and follow up actual health impacts after project approval, and to ensure that mitigation and enhancement measures are effective.

Embedding science in society: a European perspective

Within the research framework programmes, the European Commission's interest in societal issues pertaining to science and technology has been increasing over time. An important step in this direction has been taken with the establishment during the Seventh Research Framework Programme (FP7) of the theme "Science in Society" (SiS) in the Specific Programme "Capacities". From this perspective, the theoretical and practical horizon of science and technology (S&T) socialisation discussed in this issue of JCOM fits well with the SiS strategy. In fact, S&T socialisation refers, on the one hand, to the process of the adaptation of science to a changing society and, on the other hand, to the capacity of identifying and managing the social dynamics increasingly involved with scientific and technological research.

Regulatory and scientific frameworks for zoonosis control in Japan - contributing to International Health Regulations (2005)

Zoonoses have earned recognition as the source of serious problems for both public and animal health throughout the world. Emerging infectious diseases have been occurring at an unprecedented rate since the 1970s and a large proportion of these diseases are considered zoonotic. To aid in controlling zoonoses, countermeasures have been strengthened against these diseases and are maintained at both national and international levels. Atypical example of this international effort can be found in the revised International Health Regulations (2005), known as the IHR (2005), which were instituted by the World Health Organization and have been implemented since 2007. In Japan, the appropriate Ministries have established frameworks for controlling zoonoses that employ both administrative and scientific approaches to fulfill the demands of the IHR (2005). In this paper, the authors present the Japanese framework for controlling zoonoses, as a useful example for global public and animal health management in coming years.

Stem cells in chemical carcinogenesis

The advanced course was held on behalf of ECNIS, aEuropean Network of Excellence (NoE). In ECNIS—Environmental Cancer, Nutrition and Individual Suscepti-bility—twenty-four different European partners are orga-nized in 15 work packages, thereby bringing togethermultidisciplinary expertise. The goal of ECNIS is tointegrate and stimulate cancer research by fostering inter-actions between epidemiologists, molecular genetics,biochemists and molecular toxicologists. The most importantinstruments to achieve science integration are scientificmeetings, such as workshops and advanced courses, jointtraining programmes, stimulation and support of scientificcooperations, exchange of researchers, shared laboratoryfacilities and generation of platforms and databases. Cur-rent knowledge, gaps, open questions and future challengesin cancer research are summarized, discussed and finallydisseminated in several review articles as well as meetingreports. Further information on ECNIS is available athttp://www.ecnis.org.The main focus of ECNIS is the identification anddevelopment of both, biomarkers of exposure and bioin-dicators of disease to analyze the potential protectiveeffects of nutritional components as well as impact ofindividual susceptibility factors on environmental cancerrisk. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to understand themolecular mechanisms of chemical carcinogenesis.Therefore, a task of ECNIS work package 10 ‘‘Mechanisticresearch to support cancer hazard and risk assessment’’coordinated by Franz Oesch (Mainz) is to elucidate andcommunicate molecular mechanisms of chemical carcino-gens to improve risk assessment (see also Oesch et al.2008). Although it is known that chemical carcinogenesisis a multistep process which typically involves activationof a pro-carcinogen to a genotoxic agent, induction of DNAdamage and mutations, clonal expansion of initiated cellsgiving rise to a tumour, followed by further mutations andprogression to a malignant cancer, this view is much toosimplistic and many aspects are still unclear. These includethe nature of dose–response relationships, especiallyextrapolation to low doses, effects of mixtures, gender-,species- and age-dependent determinants, individual sus-ceptibility factors, such as polymorphisms of genes andinfluence of circadian rhythms in chemical carcinogenesis.One important matter of debate is the nature of the cellstargeted by a chemical carcinogen or tumour promotor.Already in the nineteenth century, pathologists havehypothesized that tumours may originate from stem cells.

International disease monitoring, July to September 2009

African swine fever in the Caucasus regionLimited number of BTV-1 and BTV-8 outbreaks in France, and BTV-1 in Spain and PortugalOutbreak of classical swine fever in domestic pigs in LithuaniaFurther...