Clustering and classification of reference documents from large-scale literature searches: Support to the SAM explanatory note "New Techniques in Agricultural Biotechnology"

Searches of the existing scientific literature are the cornerstone of scientific research and reporting. With the constant growth of the rate at which scientific studies and reviews are being published, the information produced by these searches can be delicate to manage. Narrowing the search increases the risk of overlooking important documents, while broadening it can produce too many documents to be reasonably processed. This report describes a set of strategies designed to process large sets of scientific references (such as those obtained by broad literature searches) and assist in the identification of documents relevant for specific purposes. These strategies take advantage of metadata associated to each document in SCOPUS, the database of peer-reviewed literature maintained by Elsevier and accessible through an Application Programming Interface (API). These strategies were developed and applied in support to the European Commission's Scientific Advice Mechanism (SAM) in managing the results of literature searches in the context of the exploratory note "New Techniques in Agricultural Biotechnology".JRC.F.7-Knowledge for Health and Consumer Safet

Literature and Bioinformatics Analyses of Wheat-specific Detection Methods

In view of the recent necessity to perform testing for the detection of genetically modified common wheat (Triticum aestivum), the need arises for a taxon-specific method for this organism. However, no such method has yet been officially validated. Multiple species of wheat exist on the market, such as common wheat, durum wheat, emmer wheat, etc. These plants have complex genomes, composed of different combinations (from diploid to hexaploid) of common sets of chromosomes. The specificity of a method then depends on which set of chromosome the targeted region is located, which increases the complexity of identifying methods specific to Triticum aestivum. Often, such methods were developed for the specific regulatory need of differentiating durum and common wheat (for example, in alimentary pasta labeling), with minimal concerns for non-specific detection of other plants. This document summarises the review performed by the EU-RL GMFF, complemented with in-house bioinformatics analyses, in order to identify and characterise Triticum aestivum-specific detection methods that have been described in the scientific literature. Methods with apparent specificity (based on results shown and bioinformatics analyses) and promising performance (based on results shown) are highlighted and their primers and probe sequences reported. Those methods are the 'SS II-D' and ' SS II ex7' methods described in Matsuoka et al. (2012) and the 'wx012' method described in Iida et al. (2005), and they represent good candidates to uniquely identify common wheat in complex food samples.JRC.I.3-Molecular Biology and Genomic

High-performance device for air interlacing of a yarn and corresponding method

Abstract A device for air interlacing of a yarn , comprising an interlacing chamber , a first entrance channel for receiving the yarn at the device entrance and feeding it to the interlacing chamber , and a second exit channel for receiving the yarn from the interlacing chamber and releasing it at the device exit, in which the interlacing chamber is delimited by a first emitting wall bearing a nozzle for the emission of a continuous jet of compressed air , and a second deflecting wall , opposite the first wall , suitable for receiving and deflecting the jet of compressed air emitted by the nozzle and intersecting the yarn to be interlaced, and in which the second deflecting wall is concave in shape both on a transversal plane and on a longitudinal plane with respect to the feeding path of the yarn through the devic

Supporting Co-Regulation and Motivation in Learning Programming in Online Classrooms

Self-regulation of learning in programming has been extensively investigated, emphasising an individual's metacognitive and motivational regulation components. However, learning often happens in socially situated contexts, and little emphasis has been paid to studying social modes of regulation in programming. We designed Thyone, a collaborative Jupyter Notebook extension to support learners' programming regulation in an online classroom context with the overall aim to foster their intrinsic motivation toward programming. Thyone's salient features - Flowchart, Discuss and Share Cell - incorporate affordances for learners to co-regulate their learning and drive their motivation. In an exploratory quasi-experimental study, we investigated learners' engagement with Thyone's features and assessed its influence on their learning motivation in an introductory programming course. We found that Thyone facilitated the co-regulation of programming learning and that the users' engagement with Thyone appeared to positively influence components of their motivation: interest, autonomy, and relatedness. Our results inform the design of technological interventions to support co-regulation in programming learning

Strained quantum well photovoltaic energy converter

An indium phosphide photovoltaic cell is provided where one or more quantum wells are introduced between the conventional p-conductivity and n-conductivity indium phosphide layer. The approach allows the cell to convert the light over a wider range of wavelengths than a conventional single junction cell and in particular convert efficiently transparency losses of the indium phosphide conventional cell. The approach hence may be used to increase the cell current output. A method of fabrication of photovoltaic devices is provided where ternary InAsP and InGaAs alloys are used as well material in the quantum well region and results in an increase of the cell current output

Report on the Verification of the Performance of a Method for the Detection of Event MON71800 in Wheat Using Real-Time PCR

Following the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) announcement that test results confirmed the finding of unauthorised GM glyphosate-resistant wheat "volunteer" plants harbouring the event MON71800 on a farm in Oregon, the European Union Reference Laboratory for Genetically Modified Food and Feed (EU-RL GMFF) was requested to provide as soon as possible a method to test wheat consignments for the presence of this genetically modified organism (GMO) to the National Reference Laboratories (NRLs) for GMOs of the EU Member States. In response, the EU-RL put together a testing strategy, based on readily available screening tests which was published here (http://gmo-crl.jrc.ec.europa.eu/GM_wheat.htm). Upon request, Monsanto provided in May 2013 the EU-RL with the procedure “Roundup Ready® Wheat MON71800 Event Specific Endpoint TaqMan® PCR with acc Internal Control for Seed Pools of 1:15” that had previously been made available to, and was used by USDA. The EU-RL GMFF tested this protocol on positive control samples consisting of MON71800 crude lysate, also provided by Monsanto. Our results can be summarised as follow: The method is apparently event-specific. Our specificity-tests did not show cross-reactivity on genomic DNA from a wide selection of similar GMO. The sensitivity of the method was found to be in agreement with previous findings of USDA, i.e. the relative limit of detection lies at 0.5% in a background of 301 ng of total wheat genomic DNA. The absolute limit of detection (LODabs) was determined between 5 and 10 copies of MON71800 target. The latter was not indicated by the USDA. For seed/grains the application of a sub-sampling strategy could allow detection below 0.5% but would require significant additional efforts, including the analysis of numerous sub-samples. Our tests also indicated that the duplex PCR system at the tested stage of optimisation is characterised by poor efficiency at increasing background DNA concentration in reaction. Based on the scientific evidence described in the present report, the EU-RL suggest that its testing strategy (http://gmo-crl.jrc.ec.europa.eu/GM_wheat.htm), making use of validated element and construct-specific methods and found to be more sensitive, is used to test for presence of MON71800 GM-wheat. The verified event specific method of Monsanto could be used to confirm positive findings at GM-target concentration equal or above 0.5% or it could be used for detection of GM-event MON71800 below 0.5% but it would require a costly sub-sampling strategy, which, in addition, is only possible in seeds/grains.JRC.I.3-Molecular Biology and Genomic