OER nelle Università italiane: primi risultati di un'indagine conoscitiva del Gruppo CRUI OA-OER

Le OER si inseriscono nell'ambito del movimento Open Access e dell'accesso aperto alla conoscenza, ritenuta come bene comune e prevedono licenze aperte costruite nel rispetto dei diritti di proprietà intellettuale dell’autore come stabilito dalle convenzioni internazionali e dalle normative europee e nazionali. All’inizio del 2006, nell’ambito della Commissione biblioteche della CRUI, è stato costituito il Gruppo di lavoro per l’Open Access, coordinato dal prof. Roberto Delle Donne, con il compito di dare attuazione ai principi della Dichiarazione di Berlino. Il Gruppo CRUI Open Access ha creato un sottogruppo OER. Durante l'avvio della discussione del Sottogruppo OA-OER, ci si è accordati sull'idea di realizzare un'indagine e di creare una mappa dello stato dell'arte di OER in Italia. Il contributo presenta i primi risultati dell'indagine sulle OER nelle Università italiane

Intellectual Property, Open Science and Research Biobanks

In biomedical research and translational medicine, the ancient war between exclusivity (private control over information) and access to information is proposing again on a new battlefield: research biobanks. The latter are becoming increasingly important (one of the ten ideas changing the world, according to Time magazine) since they allow to collect, store and distribute in a secure and professional way a critical mass of human biological samples for research purposes. Tissues and related data are fundamental for the development of the biomedical research and the emerging field of translational medicine: they represent the “raw material” for every kind of biomedical study. For this reason, it is crucial to understand the boundaries of Intellectual Property (IP) in this prickly context. In fact, both data sharing and collaborative research have become an imperative in contemporary open science, whose development depends inextricably on: the opportunities to access and use data, the possibility of sharing practices between communities, the cross-checking of information and results and, chiefly, interactions with experts in different fields of knowledge. Data sharing allows both to spread the costs of analytical results that researchers cannot achieve working individually and, if properly managed, to avoid the duplication of research. These advantages are crucial: access to a common pool of pre-competitive data and the possibility to endorse follow-on research projects are fundamental for the progress of biomedicine. This is why the "open movement" is also spreading in the biobank's field. After an overview of the complex interactions among the different stakeholders involved in the process of information and data production, as well as of the main obstacles to the promotion of data sharing (i.e., the appropriability of biological samples and information, the privacy of participants, the lack of interoperability), we will firstly clarify some blurring in language, in particular concerning concepts often mixed up, such as “open source” and “open access”. The aim is to understand whether and to what extent we can apply these concepts to the biomedical field. Afterwards, adopting a comparative perspective, we will analyze the main features of the open models – in particular, the Open Research Data model – which have been proposed in literature for the promotion of data sharing in the field of research biobanks. After such an analysis, we will suggest some recommendations in order to rebalance the clash between exclusivity - the paradigm characterizing the evolution of intellectual property over the last three centuries - and the actual needs for access to knowledge. We argue that the key factor in this balance may come from the right interaction between IP, social norms and contracts. In particular, we need to combine the incentives and the reward mechanisms characterizing scientific communities with data sharing imperative

Exome and Tissue-Associated Microbiota as Predictive Markers of Response to Neoadjuvant Treatment in Locally Advanced Rectal Cancer

The clinical and pathological responses to multimodal neoadjuvant therapy in locally advanced rectal cancers (LARCs) remain unpredictable, and robust biomarkers are still lacking. Recent studies have shown that tumors present somatic molecular alterations related to better treatment response, and it is also clear that tumor-associated bacteria are modulators of chemotherapy and immunotherapy efficacy, therefore having implications for long-term survivorship and a good potential as the biomarkers of outcome. Here, we performed whole exome sequencing and 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) amplicon sequencing from 44 pre-treatment LARC biopsies from Argentinian and Brazilian patients, treated with neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy or total neoadjuvant treatment, searching for predictive biomarkers of response (responders, n = 17; non-responders, n = 27). In general, the somatic landscape of LARC was not capable to predict a response; however, a significant enrichment in mutational signature SBS5 was observed in non-responders (p = 0.0021), as well as the co-occurrence of APC and FAT4 mutations (p < 0.05). Microbiota studies revealed a similar alpha and beta diversity of bacteria between response groups. Yet, the linear discriminant analysis (LDA) of effect size indicated an enrichment of Hungatella, Flavonifractor, and Methanosphaera (LDA score ≥3) in the pre-treatment biopsies of responders, while non-responders had a higher abundance of Enhydrobacter, Paraprevotella (LDA score ≥3) and Finegoldia (LDA score ≥4). Altogether, the evaluation of these biomarkers in pre-treatment biopsies could eventually predict a neoadjuvant treatment response, while in post-treatment samples, it could help in guiding non-operative treatment strategies.Fil: Takenaka, Isabella Kuniko T. M.. No especifíca;Fil: Bartelli, Thais F.. No especifíca;Fil: Defelicibus, Alexandre. No especifíca;Fil: Sendoya, Juan Martín. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires. Fundación Instituto Leloir. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Golubicki, Mariano. Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. Hospital de Gastroenterología "Dr. Carlos B. Udaondo"; ArgentinaFil: Robbio, Juan. No especifíca;Fil: Serpa, Marianna S.. No especifíca;Fil: Branco, Gabriela P.. No especifíca;Fil: Santos, Luana B. C.. No especifíca;Fil: Claro, Laura C. L.. No especifíca;Fil: Oliveira dos Santos, Gabriel. No especifíca;Fil: Kupper, Bruna E. C.. No especifíca;Fil: da Silva, Israel T.. No especifíca;Fil: Llera, Andrea Sabina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires. Fundación Instituto Leloir. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: de Mello, Celso A. L.. No especifíca;Fil: Riechelmann, Rachel P.. No especifíca;Fil: Dias Neto, Emmanuel. Universidade de Sao Paulo; BrasilFil: Iseas, Soledad. Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. Hospital de Gastroenterología "Dr. Carlos B. Udaondo"; ArgentinaFil: Aguiar, Samuel. No especifíca;Fil: Nunes, Diana Noronha. No especifíca

E-LIS between old and new forms of Grey Literature encompasses new forms of relationship between librarians in the different countries

Data are divided into general categories, according to the way they have been collected or elaborated, and these are the most common types. One of the 23 typology of metadata concerns “dataset” which can be described and deposited as a item itself inside the repository. After 16 years from its take-off, the disciplinary repository contains 22.000 open access contents in 27 different languages. The set contains statistical data about E-LIS. Over 20,000 papers have been deposited rigorously as full text open access, with a media of 110 deposits per months. Mainly are constituted by journal articles. The geographical distribution of E-LIS deposits by Countries is subdivided by countries

Solar-assisted micro gas turbine with humid air or steam-injected option

In the present work a low environmental impact, innovative, hybrid plant for the field of distributed energy is presented. The plant is obtained from the integration of a 30 kW micro gas turbine with a solar field and a bottoming ORC system. The plant is supplied with hydrogen fuel and is provided with steam injection to mitigate NO x formation. Furthermore, the cogeneration arrangement of the plant allows for flexibility in the choice between the production of electrical and thermal energy. A thermodynamic analysis of the plant was conducted and various organic fluids for the bottom ORC plant are tested. The feasibility of a single-stage Radial-Inflow Turbine (RIT) as expander for the ORC cycle is verified for various working fluids, with a two-step approach: a preliminary screening is carried out based on kinematic considerations; subsequently, a proper turbine preliminary design is developed for most interesting working fluids. Moreover, the combustion process resulting from the introduction of hydrogen fuel is studied by means of 3D CFD calculations and the effectiveness of the steam injection is verified. Finally, the off-design performance of the plant is investigated by means of a thermodynamic analysis. Results show that the novel plant achieves significant improvements in terms of power output and efficiency and fuel saving is achieved over several months thanks to the solar field and the ORC plant. The ORC working fluid is found to play a crucial role over plant performance and particularly over the feasibility of a single stage RIT, making working fluids with larger molecular weight preferable. Finally, CFD calculations proved the steam injection to be effective for NOx production reduction

COMBUSTOR – TURBINE STATOR INTERACTION IN HYDROGEN FUELLED MICRO GAS TURBINE

The current trend to global decarbonization induces the employment of alternative fuels in micro gas turbines. Among these fuels, hydrogen or hydrogen-enriched blends have been considered as one of the main attractive solutions for having fewer pollutant emissions with the same or better combustion performance compared to natural gas. Therefore, the effect of natural gas-hydrogen blended fuel on the combustion performance of a reverse flow combustor is performed by CFD numerical simulations. However, the enhanced flame speed of hydrogen can cause unstable phenomena that, in addition to the periodic unsteadiness of the stator – rotor interaction, lead to a performance decay. In this paper the effect that some critical combustion regimes exert on the combustor – stator interaction in a reverse flow burner are discussed. A preliminary assessment of flow analysis aims at the selection of the most appropriate turbulence model: the results of k-epsilon model, detached and large eddy simulation are compared. The turbulence – chemistry interaction is analyzed by means of a flamelet generated manifold scheme under the hypothesis of partially premixed combustion. The combined solution of Cequations allows identification of the fluctuations of the flame front location, which is considered the main origin of pulsating reacting flow

Comparison between hydrogen and syngas fuels in an integrated micro gas turbine/solar field with storage

In recent years, the use of alternative fuels in thermal engine power plants has gained more and more attention, becoming of paramount importance to overcome the use of fuels from fossil sources and to reduce polluting emissions. The present work deals with the analysis of the response to two different gas fuels—i.e., hydrogen and a syngas from agriculture product—of a 30 kW micro gas turbine integrated with a solar field. The solar field included a thermal storage system to partially cover loading requests during night hours, reducing fuel demand. Additionally, a Heat Recovery Unit was included in the plant considered and the whole plant was simulated by Thermoflex® code. Thermodynamics analysis was performed on hour-to-hour basis, for a given day as well as for 12 months; subsequently, an evaluation of cogeneration efficiency as well as energy saving was made. The results are compared against plant performance achieved with conventional natural gas fueling. After analyzing the performance of the plant through a thermodynamic analysis, the study was complemented with CFD simulations of the combustor, to evaluate the combustion development and pollutant emissions formation, particularly of NOx, with the two fuels considered using Ansys-Fluent code, and a comparison was made

Towards a holistic approach to policy interoperability in digital libraries and digital repositories

Underpinning every digital library and digital repository there is a policy framework, which makes the digital library viable - without a policy framework a digital library is little more than a container for content. Policy governs how a digital library is instantiated and run. It is therefore a meta-domain which is situated both outside the digital library and any technologies used to deliver it, and within the digital library itself. Policy is also a key aspect of digital library and digital repository interoperability in a common and integrated information space. Policy interoperability - that is the exchange and reuse of policies - is a step beyond policy standardisation. Furthermore, effective and efficient policy frameworks are also one of the Digital Curation Center (DCC), DigitalPreservationEurope (DPE), nestor and Center for Research Libraries (CRL) core criteria for digital repositories. In this article, we share our research on policy interoperability levels and the experimental survey on policy interoperability conducted with real-life digital libraries, as a contribution towards the definition of a Policy Interoperability Framework