RMIS – Raw materials in the battery value chain

This final report provides the content for the batteries value chain and the related battery raw materials data browser for the JRC Raw Materials Information System. This content includes information and data both on primary and secondary raw materials. The main sections developed are highlighted presented in below table. The content is structured around general questions that both the general public and policy makers may have. Datasets that particularly contribute to improve the availability of data on secondary raw materials, as requested by the Circular Economy Action Plan (2015) are found in the Stocks and Flows, the Reuse sections and in each interactive chart when clicking on the representation of ‘stock’ and ‘waste’.JRC.D.3-Land Resource

Materials dependencies for dual-use technologies relevant to Europe's defence sector

In order to support the European Commission in the preparation of future initiatives fostering the sustainability of strategic supply chains, this study was commissioned to assess bottlenecks in the supply of materials needed for the development of technologies important to Europe's defence and civil industries. The study focuses on five dual-use technology areas, namely advanced batteries, fuel cells, robotics, unmanned vehicles and additive manufacturing (3D printing). The technologies are preselected on the basis of a previous study (EASME, 2017) that explored the dual-use potential of key enabling technologies in which Europe should strategically invest. In addition, this report examines how these technologies could address specific military needs and their differences in relation to civil needs and identified opportunities for future defence research areas that could potentially serve as a basis for the design of research initiatives to be funded under the future European Defence Fund. Moreover, potential opportunities for common policy actions are also identified, notably: to strengthen Europe's position in the selected technologies’ supply chains; to facilitate collaboration between stakeholders; to increase industry involvement with special emphasis on small and medium-sized enterprises; to improve existent legislation; and increase synergies between civil and defence sectors in order to speed up progress in promising research areas.JRC.C.7-Knowledge for the Energy Unio

Materials dependencies for dual-use technologies relevant to Europe's defence sector

To support the European Commission in the preparation of future initiatives fostering the sustainability of strategic supply chains, this study was commissioned to assess bottlenecks in the supply of materials needed for the development of technologies important to Europe's defence and civil industries. The study focuses on five dual-use technology areas, namely advanced batteries, fuel cells, robotics, unmanned vehicles and additive manufacturing (3D printing). This report examines how these technologies could address specific military needs and their differences in relation to civil needs and identified opportunities for future defence research areas that could potentially serve as a basis for the design of research initiatives to be funded under the future European Defence Fund. Moreover, potential opportunities for common policy actions are also identified, notably: to strengthen Europe's position along the selected technologies’ supply chains, to facilitate collaboration between stakeholders, to increase industry involvement with special emphasis on SMEs, to improve existent legislation and increase synergies between civil and defence sectors to speed up progress in promising research areas.JRC.C.7-Knowledge for the Energy Unio

Assessment of algorithms for mitosis detection in breast cancer histopathology images

The proliferative activity of breast tumors, which is routinely estimated by counting of mitotic figures in hematoxylin and eosin stained histology sections, is considered to be one of the most important prognostic markers. However, mitosis counting is laborious, subjective and may suffer from low inter-observer agreement. With the wider acceptance of whole slide images in pathology labs, automatic image analysis has been proposed as a potential solution for these issues. In this paper, the results from the Assessment of Mitosis Detection Algorithms 2013 (AMIDA13) challenge are described. The challenge was based on a data set consisting of 12 training and 11 testing subjects, with more than one thousand annotated mitotic figures by multiple observers. Short descriptions and results from the evaluation of eleven methods are presented. The top performing method has an error rate that is comparable to the inter-observer agreement among pathologists

Raw Materials Information System (RMIS): 2019 Roadmap & Progress Report - Context, content & foreseen priorities

The European Commission's (EC) Raw Materials Initiative (RMI) emphasises that raw materials are essential for the sound and sustainable functioning of Europe’s industries and, in a broader context, of Europe’s economy and society. The EC is committed to promote the competitiveness of industries related to raw materials. These industries play an important role in many downstream sectors in the European Union (EU) such as construction, chemicals, automotive, aerospace, machinery, pharmacy, equipment, renewable energy devices, and defence. These sectors have a combined added-value of around EUR 1,000 billion and provide employment for some 30 million people. Securing an undistorted supply of raw materials and, in particular, Critical Raw Materials (CRMs) is thus crucial and requires a sound and continuously developed knowledge base, namely the European Union Raw Materials Knowledge Base (EURMKB), as highlighted in the Strategic Implementation Plan (SIP) of the European Innovation Partnership (EIP) on Raw Materials. In this context, and responding to a specific action of the 2015 Circular Economy Communication, the JRC is further advancing the EC's Raw Materials Information System (RMIS), which was first released in March 2015. The markedly upgraded second version (hereinafter “RMIS 2.0”, or simply “RMIS”) was announced in the 2017 JRC “RMIS Roadmap & Progress Report” and officially launched during the 2017 “Raw Materials Week”, organised by DG GROW in Brussels. RMIS 2.0 broadened goal and scope of the first version, significantly expanded the network of its knowledge providers, and responded – often in quantitative terms – to the latest policy and knowledge needs on raw materials. In particular, important thematic sections such as “raw materials’ profiles”, “country profiles”, “supply chain viewer” and “raw materials knowledge gateway” were included. Since its conception and first release in 2015, RMIS has been developed in close cooperation with DG GROW. DG GROW helps the JRC to recognise policy and knowledge needs related to raw materials, and supports the JRC in identifying how RMIS can best meet these needs. RMIS development is supported by (and should be intended as part of) a well-established and extensive network of knowledge providers in the area of raw materials, which includes – among others – EC-funded projects, European Agencies (EASME, EEA, etc.), academia, European Geological Surveys, industry and business associations. Interactions and knowledge exchanges among the various stakeholders of this network are promoted in the yearly “RMIS Workshop” events, held at the JRC in Ispra, Italy, which attracts every year an increasing number of participants. Today, the RMIS is the EC’s reference web-based knowledge platform on non-fuel, non-agriculture raw materials from primary (extracted/harvested) and secondary (recycled/recovered) sources. RMIS responds to the need of strengthening the European Union Raw Materials Knowledge Base (EURMKB) and acts as the core access point to such knowledge and as interface for policy support. The knowledge accessible through RMIS is, to the extent possible, made available for the European Union (from regional, national and EU data), with the ambition of providing it in a harmonized way. This 2019 “RMIS Roadmap & Progress Report” presents RMIS in its latest form, highlights the progress made since 2017, connects this with most recent and relevant policy and knowledge needs on raw materials, and provides an overview of the development goals that could help fulfil such needs.JRC.D.3-Land Resource

The Herschel-Heterodyne Instrument for the Far-Infrared (HIFI): instrument and pre-launch testing

This paper describes the Heterodyne Instrument for the Far-Infrared (HIFI), to be launched onboard of ESA's Herschel Space Observatory, by 2008. It includes the first results from the instrument level tests. The instrument is designed to be electronically tuneable over a wide and continuous frequency range in the Far Infrared, with velocity resolutions better than 0.1 km/s with a high sensitivity. This will enable detailed investigations of a wide variety of astronomical sources, ranging from solar system objects, star formation regions to nuclei of galaxies. The instrument comprises 5 frequency bands covering 480-1150 GHz with SIS mixers and a sixth dual frequency band, for the 1410-1910 GHz range, with Hot Electron Bolometer Mixers (HEB). The Local Oscillator (LO) subsystem consists of a dedicated Ka-band synthesizer followed by 7 times 2 chains of frequency multipliers, 2 chains for each frequency band. A pair of Auto-Correlators and a pair of Acousto-Optic spectrometers process the two IF signals from the dual-polarization front-ends to provide instantaneous frequency coverage of 4 GHz, with a set of resolutions (140 kHz to 1 MHz), better than < 0.1 km/s. After a successful qualification program, the flight instrument was delivered and entered the testing phase at satellite level. We will also report on the pre-flight test and calibration results together with the expected in-flight performance