Objective: Problems to be solved: The assessment of biodiversity, monitoring changes, sustainable exploitation of biodiversity, and much legislative work depends upon validated knowledge of its components: the taxonomic diversity. The same applies for areas such as human health, agriculture, or freshwater quality. However, the required data are not directly available or in the requested format. Information and expertise on the European animal species is scattered around numerous public and private organisations, they are in different formats and standards, and are of unequal quality. The Community Biodiversity Strategy of the European Commission recognises the current incomplete state of knowledge at all levels concerning biodiversity. It asks for establishing networks between European centres of excellence in biodiversity research. Fauna Europaea contributes to the European Community Biodiversity Strategy by supporting one of the main themes in the Strategy: the request to identify and catalogue the components of biodiversity, of which a database on the European terrestrial animal taxonomic diversity is a basic tool for science and policies. Scientific objectives and approach. The Fauna European project will build a public WWW service on the scientific names (with selected additional data) of the present living multicellular European terrestrial and fresh water animal species. As the project is complicated because of the large number of data of different quality and the widely distributed data sources in Europe, the development of the project depends on the contributions of numerous experts. Central in the workplan is the division of the work in three mutually linked main tasks: (1) data collation, (2) data validation, and (3) data management, including supporting information technology. The data originate from different sources, which implies the establishment of routines for easy and manageable ways to update the data, and the development of a dynamic system that allows for changes through time. Priority setting, product presentation and dissemination plans will be discussed with the end-user forum. Expected impacts: Policies with respect to biodiversity and fauna-related products will be supported by standardized information and thus facilitate communication about the names of animals, thereby ensuring that a name (and its information attributes) is effectively referring to the same species Europe wide. The use of this thesaurus function is increasingly important for numerous reasons, the political, administrative and economic integration being a foremost factor. Users may also select various subsets of information or combine these with other data for many purposes, as for example for the management of animal species or for the use of correct reference data in biotechnology. Prime Contractor: Universiteit van Amsterdam, Zoological Museum Amsterdam; Amsterdam.
High mountains comprise cold climate wilderness areas in all major life zones of Europe. Hence they provide a unique opportunity to compare climate change effects along the principal climatic gradients: a) in altitude, b) in latitude and longitude. GLORIA-EUROPE establishes a network of 18 target regions with a total of 72 monitoring sites distributed over all life zones of the continent. The network will act as an early warning system by providing a comparative data basis for a) detecting long-term changes of biodiversity and habitat stability and b) drawing data-based scenarios on the direction in which these changes may go.
Objectives and problems to be solved: The aim of the PORTRAIT project is to close a gap in the control and optimisation chain for future PV mass production: Control tools on the production equipment level supervising proper equipment functioning are already in use. Also global control tools at the factory level are available. The project provides the missing link for an effective performance control and optimisation, a tool at the solar cell level, relating raw data measured on cell precursors and finished cells to the final cell performance. Since strong lateral in homogeneities of material as well as of the process related parameters are frequently encountered, 2D data are expected to be essential for a valid prediction of performance variations. Modelling assisted process monitoring on the basis of 2D data will allow to pinpoint performance limits and variations to a specific reason. Description of the work: Four efforts are combined for achieving the project goals. 2D data of cell precursors and cells are retrieved in a comprehensible way in production environment. For this purpose a set of imaging instrumentation needs to be improved to a state where operator independent, fast and reliable results are obtained. The factors, which influence the measurement, need to be identified and controlled. For the first time 2D measurement data will be consequently included. 2. A software tool is developed capable of handling these data and relating them to the actual performance of the solar cells produced in a specific manufacturing line. 3. The proof of correlation of specific parameter variations to cell performance changes is then followed in the next turn by a minimisation of measurement and calculation time by data reduction methods without sacrificing significance's. The software code is supervised and finalised by an experienced software developer following best practice in order to guarantee easy data interfacing, reliability, maintainability and platform independence. Instrument and software development will be interacting with two different production types in order to finally deliver a widely applicable tool. The goal is, to prove the PORTRAIT method in production at the industrial partners by demonstrating the optimisation capability, while in parallel, the software is developed to a state, that makes it exploitable for solar cell production lines outside the consortium. Expected results and exploitation plans: Key deliverables of the project are: 1. the availability of characterisation techniques necessary to provide laterally resolved parameters in a short time, 2. a network model capable of handling 2D parameters, 3. the proof of the direct relevance for solar cell performance in production, 4. the final PORTRAIT software tool.
The overall goal of COMPRENDO is to improve our understanding of the effects of endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) on aquatic wildlife and humans, focussing on androgenic and antiandrogenic compounds (AACs). This will help to improve environmental quality standards and also the public health in the European Community. To this end our key objectives are: Characterise the human and environmental exposure to AACs; Determine the impacts of environmentally relevant doses/concentrations of AACs on a wide range of human-relevant models and aquatic species; Develop new biological effect measures and species-specific critical endpoints, including a molecular screen for genomic effects of AACs; Identify common principles of AAC action in different species to develop new animal models for extrapolation to human health; Develop lab cultures for suitable aquatic invertebrates and establish their baseline endocrinology; Characterise the risk originating from AACs in humans and wildlife. The COMPRENDO consortium consists of 13 partners and five subcontractors of 10 European nations (Germany: University of Frankfurt; University Hospital Bonn, Institute for Clinical Biochemistry; Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries Berlin, U.K.: University of Exeter, University of Brunel; Sweden: University of Lund; Denmark: Technical University of Denmark; France: Bureau de Recherches Geologiques et Minieres; Spain: Consejo Superior de Investigationes Cientificas; Italy: University of Milan, University of Insubria; Greece: University of Ioannina; Poland: University of Gdansk.
Ziel der EU Studie ist die Entwicklung eines konzeptionellen Rahmens zur Ausgestaltung der Multifunktionalitätsidee und ihrer Umsetzung für Nachhaltigkeitsziele in der Landschaftsnutzung.
The plurality of anthropogenic influenced European ecosystems compose Cultural Landscapes. These main contributors to European biodiversity, quality of life, heritage and identity, are threatened by socio-economic changes and landscape related policy. PAN gathers active research groups of Europe to assemble existing knowledge and develop overall understanding of man as a landscaping factor and to assess vulnerability and functioning of Cultural Landscape and their Ecosystems for dissemination to the scientific, political and public audience. PAN objectives are to develop common strategies, basic scientific tools to protect European biodiversity and to encourage sustainable use; Achieved by cross correlating research efforts and pointing to gaps in current knowledge; Resulting in recommendations for large-scale sustainable development of Cultural Landscapes and criteria to assess the role and function of landscape-management for the protection/conservation of European landscapes.
Transhumance plays a key role in maintaining biodiversity in mountain ecosystems throughout Europe. However social and economic changes are the driving forces for the decline in transhumance, which in turn has important implications for the sustainability of mountain ecosystems and threatens biodiversity. There is scattered knowledge at regional level, but no general overview. The first step in assessing the changing role of transhumance is to review its state in Europe. The proposal aims to bring the expert knowledge together, to identify links between transhumance and management of Priority Habitats, to identify gaps in the knowledge, and to present recommendations for policy stakeholders. This Accompanying Measure is built around a Review Conference and a Policy Workshop. The results will be published for the scientific world, and the policy and management stakeholders.
The Kyoto Protocol, which the EU has recently ratified, calls for a quantitative reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2008 to 2010. However global emissions, sources and sinks, are not accurately known. EVERGREEN proposes to improve this situation by using the measurements of ENVISAT, a European Earth Observation satellite. Improved greenhouse gas emission inventories will be produced from a combination of measurement and (inverse) modelling. The feasibility and quality of the method will be assessed. Measurements include (partial) columns of CO2, CH4, N2O, CO, O3, NO2 and H2O. The focus will be on methane and carbon monoxide and on regional and seasonal variations. Carbon dioxide source and sink strengths will be included on a best-effort basis. End-user involvement is arranged through participation of one coal industry and several national/European institutes, with responsibility for environment and climate issues.
Das EU-Projekt hat insgesamt zum Ziel, die in Europäischen Waldökosystemen gespeicherten Kohlenstoff- und Stickstoffpools zu quantifizieren und eine Senkenfunktion für Kohlenstoff in Chronosequenzen abzuschätzen. Das an der Universität Bayreuth bearbeitete Teilprojekt beschäftigt sich in diesem Zusammenhang insbesondere mit der Senkenfunktion der Waldbodenvegetation.
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