Open research Europe最新文献

Faces Revealed Project established a new methodology for studying the geometry of the human forms and facial features realized on anthropoid yellow coffins of Ancient Egypt. Since 1980, yellow coffins have been the subject of various studies mainly focused on iconography and palaeography. However, these anthropoid coffins are three-dimensional objects with well-rendered masks and detailed facial features as well as forearms, hands and bellies. This lack of analysis in the study of coffins may be due to the fact that they are "concealed" by rich and multi-coloured decoration, so they are not easily visible in all their forms to the naked eye. Today new technologies allow us to go more in-depth and digitally switch off the decoration and observe these "invisible" features. As this is an entirely new process, the primary task of the Faces Revealed Project was to establish a new methodology from the photogrammetric survey to the data collection. The present article discusses in detail the stages of the Project applied to around 100 Egyptian yellow coffins stored in Museums in Europe, the United States and Egypt and the information that they can disclose. The task is to share with the scientific community the established protocol and offering the possibility to "work independently" applying the same methodology to the same objects as well as to other classes of material.

An unprecedented surge in digital payments has had a profound effect on the economic development of developing nations. This transition has enabled greater financial inclusion through the provision of banking services to populations that were previously marginalised. In addition, it has reduced reliance on physical currency, thereby improving security and transparency. This bibliometric analysis examines the research on digital payments in Malaysia and Poland, providing a comparative perspective on research patterns and contributions in these two countries. Furthermore, this study offers a comprehensive examination of the research environment in Malaysia and Poland, elucidating the distinct approaches, methodology, and areas of emphasis in each nation. These findings provide useful insights for those interested in championing digital payment initiatives, as well as contributing to a more robust and resilient digital payment framework. As digital payment ecosystems mature, their significance in altering the economic landscape of emerging countries is likely to become more evident in facilitating cross-border knowledge exchange and collaboration.

Background: Energy communities facilitate several advantages, including energy autonomy, reduced greenhouse gas emissions, poverty mitigation, and regional economic development. They also empower citizens with decision-making and co-ownership prospects in community renewable projects. Integrating renewable energy sources and sector coupling is a crucial strategy for flexible energy systems. However, demonstrating clean energy transition scenarios in these communities presents challenges, including technology integration, flexibility activation, load reduction, grid resilience, and business case development.

Methods: Based on the system of systems approach, this paper introduces a 4-step funnel approach and a 4-step reverse funnel approach to systematically specify and detail demonstration scenarios for energy community projects. The funnel approach involves four steps. First, it selects demonstration scenarios promoting energy-efficient state-of-the-art renewable technologies and storage systems, flexibility through demand side management techniques, reduced grid dependence, and economic viability. Second, it lists all existing and planned project technologies, analysing energy flows. Third, it plans actions at different levels to implement the demonstration scenarios. Fourth, it validates the strategies using key performance indicators (KPI) to quantify the effectiveness of the planned measures. Furthermore, the reverse funnel approach delves deeper into the demonstration scenarios. The four steps involve identifying stakeholder perspectives, describing scenario scopes, listing conditions for realisation, and outlining business models, including value chains and economic assumptions.

Results: This approach provides a detailed analysis of the demonstration scenarios, considering actors, objectives, boundary conditions, and business assumptions. The methodologies are exemplified in three diverse European energy communities extending across residential, commercial, tertiary, and industrial establishments, allowing power-to-x and sector coupling opportunities. The paper also suggested thirteen KPIs for validating renewable-focused energy community projects.

Conclusions: Finally, the paper recommends increased collaboration between energy communities, knowledge sharing, stakeholder engagement, transparent data collection and analysis, continuous feedback, and method improvement to mitigate policy, technology, business, and market uncertainties.

Background: Zoonoses are naturally transmissible between humans and animals. Globally, they account for more than 60% of human infections, 75% of emerging infections, 2.7 million human deaths, and 10% of the total DALYs lost yearly in Africa. In the last three decades, Kenya has had sporadic outbreaks of zoonoses. To increase the speed of reporting and efficiencies in detection and control, a multi-sectoral collaboration in zoonotic disease surveillance (MZDS) between human and animal health workers is essential. In an effort, Zoonotic disease unit (ZDU) in Kenya has been established at national and county levels.

Methods: A cross sectional study was carried out to determine the level of utilization of multisectoral collaboration and its associated determinants in zoonotic disease surveillance among animal and human healthcare workers in Nakuru County. Quantitative data was gathered from 102 participants and qualitative data from 5 key informants. To test for significant differences, Chi-square and independent t-test were used.

Results: MZDS utilization level was 16% and the factors associated with MZDS utilization include; knowing what MZDS entails, education level, sector affiliation, trainings, supportive infrastructure, budget allocation and data storage. Lack of financing and poor coordination are hindrances to MZDS.

Conclusion: There is need to finance MZDS activities, strengthen coordination mechanisms, carry out more sensitization and trainings among animal and human healthcare workers.

Background: Due to the lack of complexity and variety of stimuli, conventional housing conditions of laboratory mice do not allow these animals to fully express their behavioral repertoire, including manipulative and cognitive activities. Therefore, we designed mechanical puzzles, so-called lockboxes, for mice that can be provided in their home cages. We investigated the impact of the lockbox enrichment on their phenotype and affective state when compared to conventional housing (CH) and super-environmental enrichment (SEE).

Methods: Young adult female C57BL/6JCrl mice were examined before and after 2-month exposure to the different types of enrichment in a phenotyping test battery, including tests for trait and state anxiety-related behavior, calorimetric measurements, body weight measurements, the analysis of stress hormone metabolite concentrations, and sequential problem-solving abilities with a novel lockbox. At the end of the study, adrenal gland weights were determined and pathohistological evaluation was performed. For all continuous variables, the relative variability was calculated.

Results: While the different types of enrichment affected trait anxiety-related behavior, neither state anxiety-related behavior nor physiological variables (i.e., bodyweight, resting metabolic rate, stress hormone metabolite concentrations, adrenal gland weights) were influenced. LE improved sequential problem-solving (i.e., solving novel lockboxes) when compared to SEE. Regardless of the housing condition, the relative variability increased in most variables over time, although the coefficient of variation decreased for some variables, especially in animals with access to LE. There was no evidence of toxicopathological effects associated with the material from which the lockboxes were made.

Conclusions: All lockboxes are available as open-source tool. LE revealed beneficial effects on the affective state of laboratory mice and their performance in solving novel lockboxes. Neither relevant phenotype of the mice nor reproducibility of the data were compromised by LE, similar to SEE. The lockboxes may also be used as novel approach for assessing cognition in mice.

Background: Identifying stars belonging to different classes is vital in order to build up statistical samples of different phases and pathways of stellar evolution. In the era of surveys covering billions of stars, an automated method of identifying these classes becomes necessary.

Methods: Many classes of stars are identified based on their emitted spectra. In this paper, we use a combination of the multi-class multi-label Machine Learning (ML) method XGBoost and the PySSED spectral-energy-distribution fitting algorithm to classify stars into nine different classes, based on their photometric data. The classifier is trained on subsets of the SIMBAD database. Particular challenges are the very high sparsity (large fraction of missing values) of the underlying data as well as the high class imbalance. We discuss the different variables available, such as photometric measurements on the one hand, and indirect predictors such as Galactic position on the other hand.

Results: We show the difference in performance when excluding certain variables, and discuss in which contexts which of the variables should be used. Finally, we show that increasing the number of samples of a particular type of star significantly increases the performance of the model for that particular type, while having little to no impact on other types. The accuracy of the main classifier is ∼0.7 with a macro F1 score of 0.61.

Conclusions: While the current accuracy of the classifier is not high enough to be reliably used in stellar classification, this work is an initial proof of feasibility for using ML to classify stars based on photometry.

In recent years the EU has become increasingly restrictive in its regulation of irregular migration flows despite its outward sustained discourse of safeguarding human lives and the protection of fundamental rights and freedoms. As part of this restrictive strategy, the EU has invested heavily in the securitisation and the management of migration through the externalisation of its borders. The EU-Turkey Deal struck in 2016 paved the way for further agreements with third countries with poor gender equality and human rights records, such as Libya and Tunisia. This externalisation of migration constitutes an important feature of the New Pact on Migration and Asylum adopted in 2023 with the aim of establishing a common asylum process at EU level. Asylum seekers, particularly girls and women are placed at added risk from these restrictive policies and policies of externalisation, as apart from dangers faced by all asylum seekers, they are at increased risk of human trafficking, sexual abuse and exploitation, and others forms of gender-based violence. Despite offering a short-sighted measure to a complex problem and the adverse humanitarian repercussions and gross human rights violations, particularly on female refugees and asylum seekers, such deals and pacts constitute an integral aspect of the EU's strategic agenda of managing migration through the externalisation of its borders. The article proposes a number of alternative solution-oriented measures which safeguard fundamental human rights and freedoms, in particular the right to asylum for refugee women and girls.

Life stories play a crucial role in migration discourses: they serve as testimony in journalistic work, form the core of ambassadorial storytelling by non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and inspire collaborative projects initiated by writers seeking to express their solidarity. However, this article argues, drawing on migrants' experiences for such purposes also creates an ethical dilemma: speaking about-or even for-rather than with migrants assigns them a passive role and tends to recycle existing narrative patterns and templates. Starting with a generic distinction between what we call stories of migration (various forms of self-expression granting migrants full authority and control over their narrative) and narratives on migration (external perspectives, e.g., academic, economic, political, and legal approaches, detached from lived experience), we explore the extensive middle ground of hybrid forms between these two extremes- i.e., different kinds of vicarious storytelling-before addressing their ethical implications. We further discuss how the metaphor of the level playing field, a key concept in economics, can be used in transdisciplinary research projects to establish level telling fields (LTFs), i.e., communicative spaces characterized by a fair dialogue on an equal footing for all participants.

Background: Siphonophores are diverse, globally distributed hydrozoans that play a central role in marine trophic webs worldwide. However, they still constitute an understudied fraction of the open ocean gelatinous taxa, mainly due to challenges related to siphonophore sampling and identification, which have led to a general knowledge gap about their diversity, distribution and abundance.

Methods: Here, we provide a global overview of the oceanic vertical distribution of siphonophores using DNA metabarcoding data from 77 bulk mesozooplankton samples collected at four different depth ranges (0-200, 200-500, 500-1000, 1000-3000 m depth) along the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans during the MALASPINA-2010 circumnavigation expedition.

Results: We detected a total of 44 siphonophore species (which represents about one quarter of the described siphonophore species) from which 26 corresponded to Calycophores, 14 to Physonectae and 2 to Cystonectae. Our results suggest wider horizontal and vertical distributions of siphonophore species than previously described, including novel records of some species in certain oceanic basins. Also, we provide insights into the intraspecific variation of widely distributed species. Finally, we show a vertical structuring of siphonophores along the water column; Calycophores (siphonophores without pneumatophores) dominated the epipelagic (from the surface to 200 m depth) and upper mesopelagic layers (from 200 to 500 m depth), while the proportion Physonectids (siphonophores with pneumatophore) notably increased below 500 meters and were dominant at bathypelagic depths (>1000 m depth).

Conclusions: Our results support that the siphonophore community composition is vertically structured. Also, we provide insights into the potential existence of genetic variations within certain species that dominate some ocean basins or depth ranges. To our knowledge, this is the first time that DNA metabarcoding data is retrieved to study siphonophore distribution patterns, and the study provides evidence of the potential of molecular techniques to study the distribution of gelatinous organisms often destroyed in net sampling.

The focus on culture as an engine of sustainable development has favoured its gradual acquisition by institutions engaged in the protection and promotion of heritage as an enabling and systemic factor capable of connecting innovation, continue education, research, and citizen engagement in a single chain. Knowledge of the landscape that combines works of nature and humankind and its bio-cultural diversity makes it possible to identify innovative informal education and new tourist itineraries where the real experience is presented as a cultural pilgrimage. The European project of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Programme RISE 'Informal and non-Formal E-Learning for Cultural Heritage - xFORMAL', currently halfway through its lifecycle, was born to create an informal way of accessing the cultural heritage of one's territory, revealing its past, history, and the civilisations that preceded us. After two years of closure due to the pandemic, this project reintroduced an authentic experience through gamification, a contact with landscapes, museums, and archaeological sites with physical, social, and cultural dimensions of their environments across space and over time. Building upon this foundation, the article delves into the intricate design and architectural principles that underpin the creation of the xFORMAL game, showcasing it as a paradigm of informal learning. This exploration includes a detailed analysis of the game's innovative design elements, educational strategies, and its role in facilitating an engaging and immersive learning experience outside traditional educational settings.