De dashboardsamenleving:van improvisatie tot providere

Throughout history there’s been a search for a moral compass, but a definitive one has never been found. That could change. Humans are no longer alone on the playing field but are surrounded by new star players: artificial intelligence and robotics. Herein appear the contours of a new type of society. The dashboard society is a hypothetical form of society in which every citizen has a dashboard at their disposal to help them be prudent and proactive—an asset in the time of corona in which the idea of a data-driven society is gaining strength. After emergence, conscience can acquire a digital voice in the form of a transhuman consciousness and install a ‘diagonal morality’ that connects between what citizens prefer horizontally and what is desirable at a higher level vertically. Not ‘Big Brother’ but ‘Little Sister’. It offers a solution to some classical normative problems, but is certainly not a panacea. Any kind of foresight has a downside. When the cloud of data is unlocked and social order becomes predictable to some extent, a calamity could spread across the world in the form of seven unprecedented moral dilemmas and one utopia

Delimitations of Rural Areas in Europe Using Criteria of Population Density, Remoteness and Land Cover

This report aims to improve current delimitations of rural areas in Europe as a support to statistical descriptions by introducing the criteria of peripherality/remoteness and ¿natural (non-artificial) area¿ in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) typology. In 1994, the OECD developed an easy concept to identify rural and urban areas based on the population density of a geographical unit. This scheme proved to be highly sensitive to the size of the geographical area and the classification of the thresholds. Over the years, endeavours have been made to review and improve the OECD approach and also alternative methodologies have been proposed. The current methods based solely on population distributions, do not allow for detailed and quantified geographical analysis and do not reflect two main characters differentiating rural from urban areas: the ¿natural¿ (non-artificial) surface and the accessibility/remoteness. In this study, a new rural typology has been developed by integrating the peripherality index and the land cover indicator in the OECD methodology. The analyses were carried out at Local Administrative Unit (LAU 2) level for EU-27and then aggregated at NUTS3 and NUTS2.The methodology applied is flexible and the thresholds of accessibility or land cover implemented can easily be modified to fit-for-purpose.JRC.H.5-Rural, water and ecosystem resource

Geographical downscaling of outputs provided by an economic farm model calibrated at the regional level

International audienceThere is a strong need for accurate and spatially referenced information regarding policy making and model linkage. This need has been expressed by land users, and policy and decision makers in order to estimate both spatially and locally the impacts of European policy (like the Common Agricultural Policy) and/or global changes on farm-groups. These entities are defined according to variables such as altitude, economic size and type of farming (referring to land uses). European farm-groups are provided through the Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) as statistical information delivered at regional level. The aim of the study is to map locally farm-group probabilities within each region. The mapping of the farm-groups is done in two steps: (1) by mapping locally the co-variables associated to the farm-groups, i.e. altitude and land uses; (2) by using regional FADN data as a priori knowledge for transforming land uses and altitude information into farm-groups location probabilities within each region. The downscaling process focuses on the land use mapping since land use data are originally point information located every 18 km. Interpolation of land use data is done at 100 m by using co-variables like land cover, altitude, climate and soil data which are continuous layers usually provided at fine resolution. Once the farm-groups are mapped, European Policy and global changes scenarios are run through an agro-economic model for assessing environmental impacts locally

Chlorophytum unifolium (Anthericaceae), a new species from Katanga (Dem. Rep. Congo)

In order to preserve the biodiversity of Katanga mining sites before their exploitation, a special investigation was carried out in the Tenke-Fungurume mining concession. As a first result, a new species of Chlorophytum is described. C. unifolium is the third taxon of this genus described has having only one leaf, the two other ones being C. monophyllum Oberm. from S. Africa, Western Cape, and Anthericum monophyllum Baker, now synonym of C. subpetiolatum (Baker) Kativu, from Sudan. These two species have linear or linear-lanceolate leaf-blades, unlike the blades widely ovate and cordate at the base in C. unifolium. The conservation of the new species is critically endangered. © 2009 National Botanic Garden of Belgium Permission for use must always be obtained from the National Botanic Garden of Belgium

Device-independent randomness generation with sublinear shared quantum resources

In quantum cryptography, device-independent (DI) protocols can be certified secure without requiring assumptions about the inner workings of the devices used to perform the protocol. In order to display nonlocality, which is an essential feature in DI protocols, the device must consist of at least two separate components sharing entanglement. This raises a fundamental question: how much entanglement is needed to run such DI protocols? We present a two-device protocol for DI random number generation (DIRNG) which produces approximately $n$ bits of randomness starting from $n$ pairs of arbitrarily weakly entangled qubits. We also consider a variant of the protocol where $m$ singlet states are diluted into $n$ partially entangled states before performing the first protocol, and show that the number $m$ of singlet states need only scale sublinearly with the number $n$ of random bits produced. Operationally, this leads to a DIRNG protocol between distant laboratories that requires only a sublinear amount of quantum communication to prepare the devices

Escherichia coli MW005: lambda Red-mediated recombineering and copy-number induction of oriV-equipped constructs in a single host

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p><it>Escherichia coli </it>strain EL350 contains chromosomally integrated phage lambda Red recombinase genes enabling this strain to be used for modifying the sequence of resident clones <it>via </it>recombineering. BAC and fosmid clones are highly suitable for modification by recombineering but, because they are present at low (1-2) copies per cell, the DNA is difficult to isolate in high yield and purity. To overcome this limitation vectors, e.g. pCC1FOS, have been constructed that contain the additional replication origin, <it>oriV</it>, which permits copy-number to be induced transiently when propagated in a suitable host strain, e.g. EPI300, that supplies the cognate <it>trans</it>-replication protein TrfA. Previously, we used EL350 and EPI300 sequentially to recombineer <it>oriV</it>-equipped fosmid genomic clones and, subsequently, to induce copy-number of the resulting recombinant clone. To eliminate these intervening DNA isolation and transformation steps we retrofitted EL350 with a <it>P</it>_BAD-driven <it>trfA </it>gene generating strain MW005 that supports, independently, both recombineering and copy-number induction.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The <it>P</it>_BAD-driven copy of <it>cre </it>in EL350 was replaced seamlessly with a copy of <it>trfA</it>, PCR-amplified from EPI300 chromosomal DNA, to generate MW005. This new strain has been used to both generate, via recombineering, a number of reporter gene fusions directly from pCC1FOS-based <it>Caenorhabditis elegans </it>genomic clones and to transiently induce copy-number of fosmid and BAC clones prior to DNA preparation.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>By retrofitting EL350, an established 'recombineering' <it>E. coli </it>strain, with a tightly regulated copy of <it>trfA </it>we have produced a new strain, MW005, which combines recombineering capacity with the useful ability to transiently induce copy-number of <it>oriV</it>-equipped clones. By coupling these two steps in a single strain, use of MW005 will enable the more rapid recombineering-mediated production of recombinant clones in the yield and quality necessary for many downstream purposes.</p

A genome-wide study of PDZ-domain interactions in C. elegans reveals a high frequency of non-canonical binding

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Proteins may evolve through the recruitment and modification of discrete domains, and in many cases, protein action can be dissected at the domain level. PDZ domains are found in many important structural and signaling complexes, and are generally thought to interact with their protein partners through a C-terminal consensus sequence. We undertook a comprehensive search for protein partners of all individual PDZ domains in <it>C. elegans </it>to characterize their function and mode of interaction.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Coupling high-throughput yeast two-hybrid screens with extensive validation by co-affinity purification, we defined a domain-orientated interactome map. This integrates PDZ domain proteins in numerous cell-signaling pathways and shows that PDZ domain proteins are implicated in an unexpectedly wide range of cellular processes. Importantly, we uncovered a high frequency of non-canonical interactions, not involving the C-terminus of the protein partner, which were directly confirmed in most cases. We completed our study with the generation of a yeast array representing the entire set of PDZ domains from <it>C. elegans </it>and provide a proof-of-principle for its application to the discovery of PDZ domain targets for any protein or peptide of interest.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>We provide an extensive domain-centered dataset, together with a clone resource, that will help future functional study of PDZ domains. Through this unbiased approach, we revealed frequent non-canonical interactions between PDZ domains and their protein partners that will require a re-evaluation of this domain's molecular function.</p> <p>[The protein interactions from this publication have been submitted to the IMEx (<url>http://www.imexconsortium.org</url>) consortium through IntAct (PMID: 19850723) and assigned the identifier IM-14654]</p

High Nature Value Farmland in Europe - An Estimate of the Distribution Patterns on the Basis of Land Cover and Biodiversity Data

Europe's agricultural landscapes provide highly varied living conditions for many plants and animals. Baldock et al. (1993) and Beaufoy et al. (1994) described the general characteristics of low-input farming systems in terms of biodiversity and management practices and introduced the term high nature value farmland. Typical high nature value farmland areas are the extensively grazed uplands in the UK, alpine meadows and pasture, steppic areas in eastern and southern Europe and dehesas and montados in Spain and Portugal. The more intensively farmed areas in lowland western Europe can also host concentrations of species of particular conservation interest, such as migratory waterfowl. The need for measures to prevent the loss of high nature value farmland is widely acknowledged. Conservation of biodiversity on agricultural land is an explicit objective of the pan-European Biodiversity and Landscape Strategy, the Bern Convention, the European Landscape Convention, and, at EU level, the Habitats and Birds Directives and the Rural Development Policy (Community Strategic Guidelines for Rural Development Programming Period 2007-2013). In their 6th Environment Action Programme, the EU committed itself to halting biodiversity decline by 2010. Conserving High Nature Value farmland is key to achieving this 2010 biodiversity target. Pan-European data on distribution and conservation status of HNV farmland, however, were largely lacking. In their 2003 "Kyiv" declaration, the European Environment Ministers have therefore set the goal to fill this data gap and take adequate conservation measures. In support of this policy process, EEA and UNEP published a Joint Message (EEA 2004), presenting a preliminary map of HNV farmland and analysing the targeting of agricultural policy instruments. The Joint Message used the concept as developed by Andersen et al. (2003) that describes HNV farmland as: "Those areas in Europe where agriculture is a major (usually the dominant) land use and where that agriculture supports, or is associated with, either a high species and habitat diversity or the presence of species of European conservation concern, or both". The aim of estimating HNV farmland distribution at European level according to a standardised method is primarily to gain insight in the current status, as well as enabling analysis of European trends and targeting of relevant policy instruments, such as Less Favoured Area (LFA) support. In order to increase accuracy, JRC and the EEA have been preparing the first EU27 map of High Nature Value farmland, on the basis of new land cover data, refined and regionally differentiated selection criteria, and additional biodiversity datasets.JRC.H.5-Rural, water and ecosystem resource