Growing Open Science with the Combined Potential of Citizen Science and Auto Science

In this paper, we present our ideas on how to best support researchers in every phase of the research process when dealing with their research data. We propose a Research Data Portal as the central data infrastructure. With the help of this portal, a researcher can easily manage and update his or her research data, share it with collaborators, and reach out to the public. We further propose a Citizen Science Portal, which includes some new and innovative concepts and methods. In this portal, Citizen Science and Auto Science concepts are applied, and support to bring together the best of both worlds is provided. Citizen Science promises to entail the individual (scientists and hobby scientists) to help with research. Auto Science is meant to help analyze research data, e.g., to help publish the data and to help improve its quality, by applying methods from artificial intelligence

FAIREST: A Framework for Assessing Research Repositories

International audienceThe open science movement has gained significant momentum within the last few years. This comes along with the need to store and share research artefacts, such as publications and research data. For this purpose, research repositories need to be established. A variety of solutions exist for implementing such repositories, covering diverse features, ranging from custom depositing workflows to social media-like functions. In this article, we introduce the FAIREST principles, a framework inspired by the wellknown FAIR principles, but designed to provide a set of metrics for assessing and selecting solutions for creating digital repositories for research artefacts. The goal is to support decision makers in choosing such a solution when planning for a repository, especially at an institutional level. The metrics included are therefore based on two pillars: (1) an analysis of established features and functionalities, drawn from existing dedicated, general purpose and commonly used solutions, and (2) a literature review on general requirements 1 for digital repositories for research artefacts and related systems. We further describe an assessment of 11 widespread solutions, with the goal to provide an overview of the current landscape of research data repository solutions, identifying gaps and research challenges to be addressed

NFDI4Cat: Local and overarching data infrastructures

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Influence of Solder Pads to PERC Solar Cells for Module Integration

AbstractThe majority of screen printed solar cells has silver pads at the rear side to enable soldering for the module manufacturing. The pads increase the recombination at the silicon/metal interface due to the absence of a back surface field (BSF) at the solder pads. This reduces the efficiency of full-area Al-BSF solar cells. For passivated emitter and rear cells (PERC), a large area fraction of the rear side is covered with the passivation layer. When using specially designed Ag pastes for the rear side of PERC cells, the passivation of this layer is maintained, and the rear recombination is reduced.A comparison of solar cells with and without solder pads confirms that there is no loss in solar cell performance, both cell types achieve an efficiency of 19.6%. We investigate the influence of solder pads to PERC solar cells by calculating the effective rear surface recombination. The calculations confirm that there is a loss in open circuit voltage of less than 2mV due to the solder pads.A 54-cell PERC PV module is manufactured. The cell-to-module loss reveals that the module process is still to be optimized. Comparable modules made from 9 solar cells lost less than 1% relative in all J-V parameters after a 1000h damp-heat test

NASH limits anti-tumour surveillance in immunotherapy-treated HCC.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) can have viral or non-viral causes1-5. Non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is an important driver of HCC. Immunotherapy has been approved for treating HCC, but biomarker-based stratification of patients for optimal response to therapy is an unmet need6,7. Here we report the progressive accumulation of exhausted, unconventionally activated CD8+PD1+ T cells in NASH-affected livers. In preclinical models of NASH-induced HCC, therapeutic immunotherapy targeted at programmed death-1 (PD1) expanded activated CD8+PD1+ T cells within tumours but did not lead to tumour regression, which indicates that tumour immune surveillance was impaired. When given prophylactically, anti-PD1 treatment led to an increase in the incidence of NASH-HCC and in the number and size of tumour nodules, which correlated with increased hepatic CD8+PD1+CXCR6+, TOX+, and TNF+ T cells. The increase in HCC triggered by anti-PD1 treatment was prevented by depletion of CD8+ T cells or TNF neutralization, suggesting that CD8+ T cells help to induce NASH-HCC, rather than invigorating or executing immune surveillance. We found similar phenotypic and functional profiles in hepatic CD8+PD1+ T cells from humans with NAFLD or NASH. A meta-analysis of three randomized phase III clinical trials that tested inhibitors of PDL1 (programmed death-ligand 1) or PD1 in more than 1,600 patients with advanced HCC revealed that immune therapy did not improve survival in patients with non-viral HCC. In two additional cohorts, patients with NASH-driven HCC who received anti-PD1 or anti-PDL1 treatment showed reduced overall survival compared to patients with other aetiologies. Collectively, these data show that non-viral HCC, and particularly NASH-HCC, might be less responsive to immunotherapy, probably owing to NASH-related aberrant T cell activation causing tissue damage that leads to impaired immune surveillance. Our data provide a rationale for stratification of patients with HCC according to underlying aetiology in studies of immunotherapy as a primary or adjuvant treatment

The European Data Portal: Scalable harvesting and management of Linked Open Data

The European Data Portal fosters the adoption and distribution of Linked Open Data by offering more than 130 million RDF triples. It applies DCAT-AP, the RDF vocabulary for public sector datasets in Europe. Many Open Data solutions do not satisfactorily support this metadata specification. To address this problem, we designed and implemented a novel platform for harvesting and managing native DCAT-AP-compliant RDF. Our approach uses a triplestore as main database and applies state-of-the-art development and deployment patterns to ensure performance and scalability

Mythos Blockchain: Herausforderungen für den Öffentlichen Sektor

Eine Welt ohne Mittelsmänner (Intermediäre), keine zentrale Instanz, der alle vertrauen müssen - das ist die Vision der Blockchain. Durch eine geschickte Kombination aus Wettbewerb, Kryptografie und Transparenz sollen Werttransaktionen zwischen in der Regel unbekannten Teilnehmern sicher durchgeführt werden können. Dabei soll die Blockchain nicht nur Geld-Transaktionen absichern, sondern in nahezu beliebigen Anwendungsfeldern Intermediäre ersetzen können. Doch wie funktioniert die Blockchain? Was bedeutet diese Technologie für den öffentlichen Sektor? Wo liegen die Chancen und Risiken? Wie weit ist die Standardisierung? Antworten auf diese und weitere Fragen lesen Sie diesem White Paper

Linked data in the European Data Portal: A comprehensive platform for applying DCAT-AP

The European Data Portal (EDP) is a central access point for metadata of Open Data published by public authorities in Europe and acquires data from more than 70 national data providers. The platform is a starting point in adopting the Linked Data specification DCAT-AP, aiming to increase interoperability and accessibility of Open Data. In this paper, we present the design of the central data management components of the platform, responsible for metadata storage, data harvesting and quality assessment. The core component is based on CKAN, which is extended by the support for native Linked Data replication to a triplestore to ensure legacy compatibility and the support for DCAT-AP. Regular data harvesting and the creation of detailed quality reports are performed by custom components adressing the requirements of DCAT-AP. The EDP is well on track to become the core platform for European Open Data and fostered the acceptance of DCAT-AP. Our platform is available here: https://www.europeandataportal.e