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Background: We wished to compare the nuisance parameters of pediatric vs. adult randomized-trials (RCTs) and determine if the latter can be used in sample size computations of the former.Methods: In this meta-epidemiologic empirical evaluation we examined meta-analyses from the Cochrane Database of Systematic-Reviews, with at least one pediatric-RCT and at least one adult-RCT. Within each meta-analysis of binary efficacy-outcomes, we calculated the pooled-control-group event-rate (CER) across separately all pediatric and adult-trials, using random-effect models and subsequently calculated the control-group event-rate risk-ratio (CER-RR) of the pooled-pediatric-CERs vs. adult-CERs. Within each meta-analysis with continuous outcomes we calculated the pooled-control-group effect standard deviation (CE-SD) across separately all pediatric and adult-trials and subsequently calculated the CE-SD-ratio of the pooled-pediatric-CE-SDs vs. adult-CE-SDs. We then calculated across all meta-analyses the pooled-CER-RRs and pooled-CE-SD-ratios (primary endpoints) and the pooled-magnitude of effect-sizes of CER-RRs and CE-SD-ratios using REMs. A ratio < 1 indicates that pediatric trials have smaller nuisance parameters than adult trials.Results: We analyzed 208 meta-analyses (135 for binary-outcomes, 73 for continuous-outcomes). For binary outcomes, pediatric-RCTs had on average 10% smaller CERs than adult-RCTs (summary-CE-RR: 0.90; 95% CI: 0.83, 0.98). For mortality outcomes the summary-CE-RR was 0.48 (95% CIs: 0.31, 0.74). For continuous outcomes, pediatric-RCTs had on average 26% smaller CE-SDs than adult-RCTs (summary-CE-SD-ratio: 0.74).Conclusions: Clinically relevant differences in nuisance parameters between pediatric and adult trials were detected. These differences have implications for design of future studies. Extrapolation of nuisance parameters for sample-sizes calculations from adult-trials to pediatric-trials should be cautiously done.

The authors also acknowledge the support and collaboration of many other colleagues in their respective institutes, research communities and IT Infrastructures, together with the funding received by these from many different sources. These include but are not limited to the following: (i) The Worldwide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG) project is a global collaboration of more than 170 computing centres in 43 countries, linking up national and international grid infrastructures. Funding is acknowledged from many national funding bodies and we acknowledge the support of several operational infrastructures including EGI, OSG and NDGF/NeIC. (ii) EGI acknowledges the funding and support received from the European Commission and the many National Grid Initiatives and other members. EOSC-hub receives funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 777536. (iii) The work leading to these results has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 730941 (AARC2). (iv) Work on the development of ESGF's identity management system has been supported by The UK Natural Environment Research Council and funding from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration through projects IS-ENES (grant agreement no 228203) and IS-ENES2 (grant agreement no 312979). (v) Ludek Matyska and Michal Prochazka acknowledge funding from the RI ELIXIR CZ project funded by MEYS Czech Republic No. LM2015047. (vi) Scott Koranda acknowledges support provided by the United States National Science Foundation under Grant No. PHY-1700765. (vii) GÉANT Association on behalf of the GN4 Phase 2 project (GN4-2).The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 731122(GN4-2). (viii) ELIXIR acknowledges support from Research Infrastructure programme of Horizon 2020 grant No 676559 EXCELERATE. (ix) CORBEL life science cluster acknowledges support from Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 654248. (x) Mirjam van Daalen acknowledges that the research leading to this result has been supported by the project CALIPSOplus under the Grant Agreement 730872 from the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation HORIZON 2020. (xi) EISCAT is an international association supported by research organisations in China (CRIRP), Finland (SA), Japan (NIPR), Norway (NFR), Sweden (VR), and the United Kingdom (NERC). This white-paper expresses common requirements of Research Communities seeking to leverage Identity Federation for Authentication and Authorisation. Recommendations are made to Stakeholders to guide the future evolution of Federated Identity Management in a direction that better satisfies research use cases. The authors represent research communities, Research Services, Infrastructures, Identity Federations and Interfederations, with a joint motivation to ease collaboration for distributed researchers. The content has been edited collaboratively by the Federated Identity Management for Research (FIM4R) Community, with input sought at conferences and meetings in Europe, Asia and North America.

In the biomedical detection context, plasmonic tilted fiber Bragg gratings (TFBGs) have been demonstrated to be a very accurate and sensitive sensing tool, especially well-adapted for biochemical detection. In this work, we have developed an aptasensor following a triple strategy to improve the overall sensing performances and robustness. Single polarization fiber (SPF) is used as biosensor substrate while the demodulation is based on tracking a peculiar feature of the lower envelope of the cladding mode resonances spectrum. This method is highly sensitive and yields wavelength shifts several tens of times higher than the ones reported so far based on the tracking of individual modes of the spectrum. An amplification of the response is further performed through a sandwich assay by the use of specific antibodies. These improvements have been achieved on a biosensor developed for the detection of the HER2 (Human Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor-2) protein, a relevant breast cancer biomarker. These advanced developments can be very interesting for point-of-care biomedical measurements in a convenient practical way.

A long tradition of separate Nearctic and Palaearctic taxonomic studies of the diverse aleocharine rove beetles (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae) has obscured the recognition of Holarctic species and detection of adventive species in both regions. Recently, integrated study of the two regions through detailed morphological comparisons and development of an authoritatively identified DNA barcode reference library has revealed the degree to which these two aleocharine faunas are interconnected, both naturally and through human activity. Here this approach is adopted to recognize new species, reveal Holarctic species, and recognize adventive species in both North America and Europe. The following new species are described: Isoglossa triangularis Klimaszewski, Brunke &amp; Pentinsaari, sp. nov. from British Columbia; Gnypeta impressicollis Klimaszewski, Brunke &amp; Pentinsaari, sp. nov., from Ontario, Maryland and North Carolina; Aloconota pseudogregaria Klimaszewski, Brunke &amp; Pentinsaari, sp. nov., from Ontario and Virginia; and Philhygra pseudolaevicollis Klimaszewski, Brunke &amp; Pentinsaari, sp. nov. from eastern Canada. Dasygnypeta velata and Philhygra angusticauda are revealed to be Holarctic species, resulting in the following synonymies: Dasygnypeta velata (Erichson, 1839) = Gnypeta minuta Klimaszewski &amp; Webster, 2008, syn. nov. and Philhygra angusticauda (Bernhauer, 1909) = Atheta (Philhygra) pinegensis Muona, 1983, syn. nov. The Nearctic species Hylota ochracea (and genus Hylota), Thecturota tenuissima, and Trichiusa robustula are newly reported from the Palaearctic region as adventive, resulting in the following synonymies: Hylota ochracea Casey, 1906 = Stichoglossa (Dexiogyia) forticornis Strand, 1939, syn. nov.; Thecturota tenuissima Casey, 1893 = Atheta marchii Dodero, 1922, syn. nov.; and Trichiusa robustula Casey, 1893 = T. immigrata Lohse, 1984, syn. nov. The Palaearctic species Amarochara forticornis, Anomognathus cuspidatus, Oligota pumilio, and Parocyusa rubicunda are newly confirmed from the Nearctic region as adventive, resulting in the following synonymies: Parocyusa rubicunda (Erichson, 1837) = Chilopora americana Casey, 1906, syn. nov. and Anomognathus cuspidatus (Erichson, 1839) = Thectura americana Casey, 1893, syn. nov. The genus Dasygnypeta, sensu nov. is newly reported from North America, Paradilacra is newly reported from eastern North America, and Haploglossa is newly reported from Canada, resulting in the following synonymy: Paradilacra densissima (Bernhauer, 1909) = Gnypeta saccharina Klimaszewski &amp; Webster, 2008, syn. nov. Native Cyphea wallisi is newly reported from across Canada and C. curtula is removed from the Nearctic fauna. The status of both Gyrophaena affinis and Homalota plana is uncertain but these species are no longer considered to be adventive in North America. Three new combinations are proposed: Dasygnypeta baranowskii (Klimaszewski, 2020) and D. nigrella (LeConte, 1863) (both from Gnypeta) and Mocyta scopula (Casey, 1893) (from Acrotona). Dolosota Casey, 1910, syn. nov. (type species Eurypronota scopula Casey), currently a subgenus of Acrotona, is therefore synonymized with Mocyta Mulsant &amp; Rey, 1874. Additionally, four new Canadian records and 18 new provincial and state records are reported.

The final meeting of the EXPOsOMICS project "Final Policy Workshop and Stakeholder Consultation" took place 28-29 March 2017 to present the main results of the project and discuss their implications both for future research and for regulatory and policy activities. This paper summarizes presentations and discussions at the meeting related with the main results and advances in exposome research achieved through the EXPOsOMICS project; on other parallel research initiatives on the study of the exposome in Europe and in the United States and their complementarity to EXPOsOMICS; lessons learned from these early studies on the exposome and how they may shape the future of research on environmental exposure assessment; and finally the broader implications of exposome research for risk assessment and policy development on environmental exposures. The main results of EXPOsOMICS in relation to studies of the external exposome and internal exposome in relation to both air pollution and water contaminants were presented as well as new technologies for environmental health research (adductomics) and advances in statistical methods. Although exposome research strengthens the scientific basis for policy development, there is a need in terms of showing added value for public health to: improve communication of research results to non-scientific audiences; target research to the broader landscape of societal challenges; and draw applicable conclusions. Priorities for future work include the development and standardization of methodologies and technologies for assessing the external and internal exposome, improved data sharing and integration, and the demonstration of the added value of exposome science over conventional approaches in answering priority policy questions. This work has been supported by the Exposomics EC FP7 grant (Grant agreement no: 308610) to PV. MCT is supported by the Departament de Salut, Generalitat de Catalunya. ISGlobal is a member of the CERCA Programme, Generalitat de Catalunya

The BIOMEX (BIOlogy and Mars Experiment) is part of the European Space Agency (ESA) space mission EXPOSE-R2 in Low-Earth Orbit, devoted to exposing microorganisms for 1.5 years to space and simulated Mars conditions on the International Space Station. In preparing this mission, dried colonies of the Antarctic cryptoendolithic black fungus Cryomyces antarcticus CCFEE 515, grown on martian and lunar analog regolith pellets, were subjected to several ground-based preflight tests, Experiment Verification Tests, and Science Verification Tests (SVTs) that were performed to verify (i) the resistance of our model organism to space stressors when grown on extraterrestrial rock analogs and (ii) the possibility of detecting biomolecules as potential biosignatures. Here, the results of the SVTs, the last set of experiments, which were performed in ultraviolet radiation combined with simulated space vacuum or simulated martian conditions, are reported. The results demonstrate that C. antarcticus was able to tolerate the conditions of the SVT experiment, regardless of the substratum in which it was grown. DNA maintained high integrity after treatments and was confirmed as a possible biosignature; melanin, which was chosen to be a target for biosignature detection, was unambiguously detected by Raman spectroscopy.

In this paper, we propose a simple oligopoly game model to represent the interactions between coalitions of countries in deploying carbon dioxide removal (CDR) strategies in a steady-state net-zero emission climate regime that could take place by the end of the twenty-first century. The emission quotas and CDR activities obtained in the solution of this steady-state model could then be used as a target for end-of-period conditions in a dynamic integrated assessment analysis studying the transition to 2100. More precisely, we analyze a steady-state situation where m coalitions exist and behave as m players in a game of supplying emission rights on an international emission trading system. The quotas supplied by a coalition must correspond to the amount of CO2 captured through CDR activities in the corresponding world region. We use an extension of the computable general equilibrium model GEMINI-E3 to calibrate the payoff functions and compute an equilibrium solution in the noncooperative game.

Current state-of-the-art results in Music Information Retrieval are largely dominated by deep learning approaches. These provide unprecedented accuracy across all tasks. However, the consistently overlooked downside of these models is their stunningly massive complexity, which seems concomitantly crucial to their success. In this paper, we address this issue by proposing a model pruning method based on the lottery ticket hypothesis. We modify the original approach to allow for explicitly removing parameters, through structured trimming of entire units, instead of simply masking individual weights. This leads to models which are effectively lighter in terms of size, memory and number of operations. We show that our proposal can remove up to 90% of the model parameters without loss of accuracy, leading to ultra-light deep MIR models. We confirm the surprising result that, at smaller compression ratios (removing up to 85% of a network), lighter models consistently outperform their heavier counterparts. We exhibit these results on a large array of MIR tasks including audio classification, pitch recognition, chord extraction, drum transcription and onset estimation. The resulting ultra-light deep learning models for MIR can run on CPU, and can even fit on embedded devices with minimal degradation of accuracy. 8 pages, 2 figures. 21st International Society for Music Information Retrieval Conference 11-15 October 2020, Montreal, Canada

Nanotechnologies have reached maturity and market penetration that require nano‐specific changes in legislation and harmonization among legislation domains, such as the amendments to REACH for nanomaterials (NMs) which came into force in 2020. Thus, an assessment of the components and regulatory boundaries of NMs risk governance is timely, alongside related methods and tools, as part of the global efforts to optimise nanosafety and integrate it into product design processes, via Safe(r)‐by‐Design (SbD) concepts. This paper provides an overview of the state‐of‐the‐art regarding risk governance of NMs and lays out the theoretical basis for the development and implementation of an effective, trustworthy and transparent risk governance framework for NMs. The proposed framework enables continuous integration of the evolving state of the science, leverages best practice from contiguous disciplines and facilitates responsive re‐thinking of nanosafety governance to meet future needs. To achieve and operationalise such framework, a science‐based Risk Governance Council (RGC) for NMs is being developed. The framework will provide a toolkit for independent NMs' risk governance and integrates needs and views of stakeholders. An extension of this framework to relevant advanced materials and emerging technologies is also envisaged, in view of future foundations of risk research in Europe and globally. This study received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No 814425 (RiskGONE) and No 814572 (NanoSolveIT). Peer reviewed

Abstract: This article discusses the need to innovate education due to global changes to keep its status as a human right and public good and introduces Open Education as a theory to fulfil these requirements. A systematic literature review confirms the hypothesis that a holistic quality framework for Open Education does not exist. For its development, a brief history and definition of Open Education are provided first. It is argued that Open Education improves learning quality through the facilitation of innovative learning designs and processes. Therefore, sources of learning quality and dimensions of quality development are discussed. To support the improvement of the learning quality and design of Open Education, the Reference Process Model of ISO/IEC 40180 (former ISO/IEC 19796-1) is introduced and modified for Open Education. Adapting the three quality dimensions and applying the macro, meso, and micro levels, the OpenEd Quality Framework is developed. This framework combines and integrates the different quality perspectives in a holistic approach that is mapping them to the learning design, processes, and results. Finally, this article illustrates potential adaptations and benefits of the OpenEd Quality Framework. The OpenEd Quality Framework can be used in combination with other tools to address the complexity of and to increase the quality and impact of Open Education. To summarize, the OpenEd Quality Framework serves to facilitate and foster future improvement of the learning design and quality of Open Education.