The Magazine of The European Research Area: Results Supplement

ISSN 1830-8664
no 2 February 2008
European Commission
the magazine of the european research area

R E S U LT S S U P P L E M E N T
Biology and medicine 5
Energy 17
Environment 20
IT and telecommunications 24
Industrial technologies 36
in this issue
Studying the role of iron in heart

disease, page 5
Grasslands grow as energy source,

page 17
Outreach for oceans, page 20
The leading edge: plastic fibre slashes

network costs, page 24
Optimising polymer processing,

page 36
ShutterStock, 2008
CFRes_02b.indd 1 25-02-2008 13:55:56

edITorIal
The seeds of success
R E S U LT S S U P P L E M E N T The days are getting longer, the tulips are in bloom, and
serried ranks of chocolate bunnies have sprouted in the
shops spring is in the air! The growing season has
begun, and in parks and fields, woodlands and window
boxes across the EU, plants are determined to get on with it.
Published by A pretty sight, and also a promising one, for example for
CORDIS Unit research and development efforts exploring the potential
Oce for Ocial Publications of various energy crops. The Bioenergy chains project
of the European Communities set out to increase the use of biomass by evaluating the
2, rue Mercier
L-2985 Luxembourg
technical, socioeconomic and environmental feasibility of
Fax (352) 29 29-44090 the entire bioenergy chain in southern Europe, from biomass
E-mail: production to thermo-chemical conversion. The energy
research-eu-supplements@publications. section leads with a short presentation of the projects work,
europa.eu which notably aimed to eliminate seasonal variation in supply.
The team focused on perennial crops, such as reeds, miscanthus and switchgrass, to ensure
Editorial coordination
year-round availability of raw material through successive harvesting.
Evi Ford-Alexandraki
All issues of the research*eu results supplement And of course, plant power is just one of many topics recently featured on the Technology
are available online at: Marketplace. Our selection from the latest coverage begins with the biology and medicine
http://cordis.europa.eu/news/research-eu section, which opens with fertile research into aspects of iron overload disorders, and more
specifically the potential impact of normal dietary intake on the risk of heart disease in
The research*eu results supplement is
patients with hereditary haemochromatosis. The environment section sets out with an
published by the Oce for Ocial
Publications of the European Communities as overview of a particularly fruitful outreach activity launched as part of the EuroStrataForm
part of the EU-funded research programmes. project in order to get schoolchildren involved in earth and ocean science. The IT and
It is based on two CORDIS information telecommunications section leads with an article from the ICT Results service, which hints
services, featuring highlights from the latest that building home and office networks may soon become a do-it-yourself job, and a great
technology oers and project news disseminated deal cheaper than it is today, in the wake of the POF-ALL projects research into the potential
on the Technology Marketplace and on the of plastic optical fibres. And finally, the industrial technologies section features several articles
information and communication technologies
results service (ICT Results service).
on modelling approaches and techniques designed by EU-funded projects to reduce flow
instabilities and optimise production processes for polymers.
The technologies presented in this
supplement may be covered by intellectual As usual, all the articles presented this month were freshly picked from the Technology
property rights. Marketplace and the ICT Results service. To check for more news, read up on other projects or
submit information on your own work, please access these CORDIS services online at:
Subscriptions
http://cordis.europa.eu/marketplace and http://cordis.europa.eu/ictresults
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Orders for back issues or additional copies January, have received the first two issues of the rebranded supplement by default. However,
Please use the online subscription form at the
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Please submit your information online at:
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in the other features window. Thank you. The editorial team
Frequent acronyms
community research and
development Information service ERA European research area
FP5/6/7 Fifth/Sixth/Seventh Framework Programme of the European Community
European Communities, 2008 for research, technological development and demonstration activities
Reproduction permitted, provided the source is acknowledged. ICT information and communication technologies
Neither the Office for Official Publications nor any person acting IST information society technologies
on its behalf is responsible for the use that may be made of the
information contained in this publication or for any errors that
R&D research and development
may remain in the texts, despite the care taken in preparing them. SMEs small and medium-sized enterprises
2 research*eu results supplement No 2 February 2008
CFRes_02b.indd 2 25-02-2008 13:55:59

Table of contents
Biology and medicine Studying the role of iron in heart disease 5
New therapeutics for iron overload disorders
Iron overload and liver fibrosis
Microbubbles for ultrasound interpretation 6
B cells make specific monoclonal antibodies
Stem cells transformed to make dopamine 7
Reasons for leaving the nursing profession
New insight on fish disease 8
Salmon stress levels from sea lice
Model for sea lice infection of salmonids
Improving welfare in fish farms 9
Methods for evaluating and modelling fisheries
Recommendations for aquaculture and game angling
Muscle decline and physical training in the elderly 10
Anti-ageing treatment for T cells
Genetic damage in elderly immune systems
High-density gene map for the fruit fly 11
Intranasal flu vaccines
Improving ruminant diets 12
Using plants to decrease methane emissions
Meadow plants reduce unwanted protozoa
Mapping for mastitis resistance 13
Dendritic cells fight foot-and-mouth disease
Research network for chromosome imbalances 14
Throwing light on chromosomal disorders
Health supplements from fungi
Reproductive health of young Lithuanian men 15
Software approach for understanding mitogen-activated protein kinase
Disc cells under pressure 16
The backbone of spine degeneration
Energy Grasslands grow as energy source 17

Leading to sustainable bioenergy
Database for energy insight into low-income rural housing
Rethinking silicon wafer technology 18
Thermally stable adhesive for vacuum applications
Magnetron sputtering with real-time thickness control
Semiconductor waste makes highly efficient solar cells 19
Designing durability into large rotor blades
Bigger, stronger wind turbine blades
Environment Outreach for oceans 20

Canopy processes in terrestrial ecosystem models
Climate change and acid oceans
Non-destructive tool for environmental analysis 21
Underwater recording of medusa dispersion
Tram travel crosses borders 22
Integrating public transport information
A fresh eye on public transport
research*eu results supplement No 2 February 2008 3
CFRes_02b.indd 3 25-02-2008 13:55:59

Reproducing night-time warming and drought conditions 23
Eco-friendly, low-cost prefabrication of buildings
IT and telecommunications The leading edge: plastic fibre slashes network costs 24
Problem solving in mobile ad hoc networks 25
Designing modern dynamic networks
Sophisticated image segmentation 26
Managing IP network trust
Web 3.0: user-generated networks?
Distributed control systems in industrial automation 27
Raising awareness of IPv6 within the scientific community 28
Technological advantages of IPv6
Developing ontology-based software 29
The future of the web is semantic
Ambient intelligence: snowboarding to the new frontier 30
Advanced programming for distributed and mobile systems 31
Inspired by distributed and mobile programming concepts
Integrated data management for speech therapy 32
Evaluating text mining practices
Coppers not coping: new chips call on light speed 33
Microsensors integrated on a chip 34
Optical fibre: secure in all the chaos
Wireless systems at millimetre wave frequencies 35
Industrial technologies Optimising polymer processing 36

Structural design of polymeric materials
Advanced methods for improving polymer properties 37
Novel insights into polymer processing instabilities
More reliable lead-free electronics 38
Lifespan and ageing of industrial plant components
Friction stir welding gains industrys acceptance
Lead-free solder solutions for electronic packages 39
Evaluating the lifespan of industrial plant components
Managing all costs effectively in mining
Crash warning for connected cars? 40
Ultrasound-treated materials for dental application
Hot microbes for industrial pathways 41
Leading to safer, cleaner vehicles
Plasma technology produces better barriers 42
Plasma in health applications
RFID pilots: towering solutions for global supply 43
Unwearable, durable components of complex geometry 44
Fast track to processing of woven textile-reinforced thermoplastic components
New mould technologies for energy savings
Sailing into smoother waters 45
Purging nanos innovation bottleneck
Removing hard coatings with abrasive water jets 46
Innovative lanthanide compounds for optoelectronics
Newly developed ancient copper alloys
Industrial energy savings with grinding technology 47
Efficiency measures for process improvements
CFRes_02b.indd 4 25-02-2008 13:55:59

bIologY and MedIcIne
studying the role of iron in heart disease
The Nutrient iron toxicity project investigated the impact of normal dietary iron in patients with
homozygous hereditary haemochromatosis, particularly the risk of coronary heart disease in women.

Hereditary haemochromatosis is a chronic iron overload disorder Having taken into account cardiovascular and nutritional risk fac-
where patients absorb too much iron that leads to increased lev- tors, high dietary haem iron intake was found to be responsible
els of toxic non-transferrin bound iron (NTBI) in plasma. This dis- for a 65 % increase in coronary heart disease risk. The data showed
order is quite common in European countries, with one tenth of that middle-aged women with a relatively high haem iron intake
the population at risk of developing cerebral and cardiac athero- are susceptible to the presentation of symptoms of coronary heart
sclerotic complications. disease. Therefore, there is a significant need for middle-aged
women to follow an appropriate diet and lifestyle to prevent this.
With the aim of shedding more light on this disorder, the Nutri-
Funded under the FP5 programme Life quality (Quality of life and management of living resources).
ent iron toxicity project focused on exploring the adverse effects
of iron in haemochromatosis. One of the primary objectives was Collaboration sought: further research or development support.
the specification of the mechanism of NTBI toxicity as well as its
effects on the vascular endothelium, which notably include arte- Offer ID: 3673
riosclerosis, and on the liver.
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An important aspect of the projects work involved investigation
of the relation of the dietary haem iron intake with coronary heart
disease risk in a large population-based group of middle-aged
women. The cohort involved women aged between 49 and 70
years at recruitment between 1993 and 1997.
The study was completed in January 2000 with follow-up research

that resulted in the documentation of 252 newly diagnosed cases
of coronary heart disease. Data stratification included additional
cardiovascular risk factors, menstrual periods, and antioxidant
intake to investigate the possibility of effect modification.
new therapeutics for iron overload disorders One of the active iron-binding polymers
designed presented an increased capacity to
Within the context of the Nutrient iron toxicity project, novel iron-binding suppress iron absorption in the gastrointes-
polymers were designed for hereditary haemochromatosis disorder. tinal system. A Swiss pharmaceutical com-
pany showed interest in this development
Haemochromatosis is a hereditary disorder The Nutrient iron toxicity project focused for future collaboration. All these project
that involves abnormal dietary iron metab- on developing new diagnostic tests and non- results can significantly contribute to the
olism causing iron overload in a number of absorbable iron chelators for easy therapy minimisation of the high morbidity and
body tissues. This disorder eventually leads and prevention of iron overload. One of mortality rates, providing a better quality
to hyper-absorption of iron from a diet. Typ- the key project results involved the design of life for iron overload patients and their
ically, after a period of 30 years, the accumu- of new iron polymers for avoiding the accu- families.
lated iron levels become toxic, resulting in mulation of body iron. The biocompatible
adverse cardiac, endocrine or liver symp- polymers may be introduced in a diet when
toms. It is estimated that one tenth of the they demonstrate selective binding to iron Funded under the FP5 programme Life quality
European population with hereditary mark- in order to prevent its absorption. A set (Quality of life and management of living resources).
ers for haemochromatosis are potentially of synthesised polymers was successfully Collaboration sought: further research or development support.
subject to cerebral and cardiac atheroscler- tested which may be incorporated into clin-
otic complications. ical studies. Offer ID: 3616
Iron overload and liver fibrosis are the main culprits involved in liver fibro-
sis. The research team discovered that hepa-
Iron overload, as a result of dietary excess or inherited conditions, has tocytes in individuals with a certain type of
serious consequences. Scientists have investigated the role of hepatic stellate HC fail to produce hepcidin. This is a hor-
cells (HSCs) on a common symptom of excess iron, fibrosis of the liver. mone produced in the liver that controls
secretion of iron from macrophages. These
Iron is a very important dietary component age and atherosclerosis by the absorption of are the big eaters of the immune system
and its deficiency symptoms are well known. excessive iron. which engulf invaders.
On the other hand, its excess can be equally
if not more devastating, potentially causing The Nutrient iron toxicity project therefore This is particularly relevant for the special-
organ damage and the formation of excess aimed to investigate the intricate metabolic ised macrophages that recycle iron from
fibrous tissue in the affected organ. Haemo- pathways behind overload damage. Partners old red blood cells. The consequent iron
chromatosis (HC) is an inherited disease at Modena University refined this line of
where normal dietary iron causes liver dam- research and focused on HSCs. These cells continued on page 6
CFRes_02b.indd 5 25-02-2008 13:56:03

Microbubbles for ultrasound interpretation Alternative imaging techniques such as
magnetic resonance imaging or computed
Ultrasound scanning is an effective means of detecting symptoms tomography are expensive. It is foreseen that
associated with strokes. Researchers have developed a new contrast the use of microbubbles may be an efficient
agent to improve and extend diagnoses from the scanning process. cost-effective alternative that has the added
advantage of being readily transportable.

Ultrasound scanning is an effective means tiny air bubbles, each with a size of less
of obtaining information about blood per- than 10 m. Each of these microbubbles Funded under the FP5 programme Life quality
fusion, or nutritive flow, and perfusion will reflect the sound wave to produce an (Quality of life and management of living resources).
defects within tissue. This method is non- image. Using this targeted microbubble Collaboration sought: information exchange/training.
invasive and can give an early diagnosis and technique, medical staff can detect lesions,
a chance for effective monitoring and con- assess their size and their importance, and Offer ID: 3489
sequent recovery. monitor the efficacy of treatments for the
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affected area.
The UMEDS project aimed to develop
enhanced techniques of ultrasound scan- The novel microbubbles
ning in order to achieve these goals. Project were targeted to human
partners at Bracco Research S.A. specific- platelets, and research-
ally researched the refinement of ultrasound ers found that use of
contrast agents. Ultrasound images can be these increased the ultra-
improved by using a contrast agent. To date, sonic detection of human
the blood pool agents utilised have only given thrombi or clots. Further
information about vascular compartments experiments revealed the
through derived parameters like blood flow. possibility of using the
microbubbles for thera-
An alternative way of doing this is to use peutic thrombolysis to dis-
an agent which consists of millions of perse the clot.
b cells make specific monoclonal antibodies collected and a specific type of B memory
cell was isolated. After two weeks and after
The improvement of vaccination techniques is one of the keys to tackling culture with the Epstein Barr virus using a
diseases like hepatitis and cancer. Researchers have devised a method to produce newly developed method, the B cells were
monoclonal antibodies against a virus using human immune memory cells. purified and screened for specific antibodies.
After several purification steps, stable spe-
Human monoclonal antibodies have become understanding of the complex pathways cific clones producing monoclonal antibod-
an important tool in medicine, pharmaceu- involved. As an integral part of this, scien- ies were isolated.
ticals and molecular biology. If monoclonal tists at the Institute for Research in Bio-
antibodies are present for any cell or sub- medicine in Switzerland developed a novel It is expected that further R & D in this
stance, the antibodies can serve to detect and method to produce human monoclonal field will yield novel efficient methods of
purify those entities. Monoclonal antibodies antibodies from memory B cells. Memory disease prevention. These are most likely to
have been produced to treat viral infections, B cells are formed from B lymphocytes and be based on the complex molecular biology
cardiovascular diseases and inflammatory they remember the invader for faster pro- involved including new vaccines refined for
disease, to name but a few. duction of antibodies in the wake of a future specific purposes.
infection by the same pathogen.
The overall objective of the European
project Memovax was to investigate the The team produced monoclonal antibodies Funded under the FP5 programme Life quality
nature of immunological memory to pro- from an individual who had recovered from (Quality of life and management of living resources).
vide a rational approach to immunisation severe acute respiratory syndrome coro- Collaboration sought: further research or development support.
against diseases. Immunisation strategy navirus (SARS-CoV). With the informed
could therefore be based on an improved consent of the patient, peripheral blood was Offer ID: 3577
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continued from page 5 iron overload and liver brosis
excess then starts the cascade of events is crucial. It can provide the basis for more
toward liver damage. The resultant oxidative effective therapy for iron overload suffer-
stress triggers activation of those HSCs that ers and the means by which preventive
cause the liver fibrosis. On a positive note, measures can be taken in those with excess
the team also discovered that during active dietary iron.
fibrogenesis, iron chelators could be used
for fibrosis prevention and therefore stop
HSC activation. Funded under the FP5 programme Life quality
(Quality of life and management of living resources).
As HC is the most common hereditary dis- Collaboration sought: further research or development support.
ease in Europe and iron excess has such
detrimental effects on health, this research Offer ID: 3552
CFRes_02b.indd 6 25-02-2008 13:56:10

stem cells transformed to make dopamine Parkinsons disease affects more than a mil-
lion people in Europe alone. Thus, using
A European team of scientists has researched the molecular Wnt-5a as part of the molecular cocktail,
protocol for differentiation of stem cells into dopaminergic cells efficient production of DA neurons may be
for the treatment of Parkinsons disease. achieved for the effective treatment of this

distressing condition.
Parkinsons disease is typified by a pro- responsible for the differentiation of these
nounced tremor of the extremities, usually dopamine-producing cells.
the hands or lips. It is the source of diffi- Funded under the FP5 programme Life quality
culty of movement and exacts a high cost in Their focus was the role of a family of (Quality of life and management of living resources).
terms of health care. The disease is a result glycoproteins, the Wnts. The Wnts, first Collaboration sought: further research or development support.
of the progressive destruction of dopamine- investigated in the fruit fly, have a wide
producing cells in an area of the midbrain, range of functions and are present through- Offer ID: 3550
the substantia nigra. Dopamine is a neuro- out the animal kingdom. In humans, they
transmitter and has many functions includ- are responsible for physiological processes
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ing that involved in motor activity, hence including cell division and differ-
the array of symptoms that constitute Par- entiation, the key to this piece of
kinsons disease. research. The researchers investi-
gated several members of this family
Accordingly, the aim of the DANCE project and they found that they are key regu-
was to develop dopaminergic (DA) neural lators of proliferation and differenti-
cell lines for transplants. A multidisciplinary ation of the DA precursors. Moreover,
consortium investigated DA cell develop- they found evidence that individual
ment from human neural precursor cells. As Wnts play very different roles. In par-
part of this line of research, workers at the ticular, Wnt-5a could directly stimulate
Molecular Neurobiology Lab in Stockholm the differentiation of stem cells into the
researched some of the molecular pathways DA neurons.
reasons for leaving the nursing profession order to accomplish tasks heavily depend
on such factors.
The NEXT study contributed to sustaining future health care provision
in ageing societies. This was achieved through investigating the reasons NEXT was the first study to use the WAI
behind the loss of trained staff from the nursing profession. from a cross-cultural perspective. This
proved to be an effective tool for predict-
8
premature departure. The WAI evaluates ing an intention to leave the nursing profes-
ShutterStock, 200
the link between an individuals perceived sion. Therefore, work ability is an important
personal resources and the self-evaluation organisational resource. Human resources
of ones own working conditions. It also managers should recognise examples of
provides empirical evidence of the relation- good practice and promote working condi-
ship between work ability, age and inten- tions that support work ability. This in turn
tion to leave nursing. This relationship was will help to reduce the desire to leave nurs-
evaluated using a representative sample of ing as a result of burnout, disability or other
26 000 qualified nurses from 10 European reasons causing poor health.
countries.
Funded under the FP5 programme Life quality
In all 10 countries, WAI scores were sig- (Quality of life and management of living resources).
nificantly lower among older nurses than in Collaboration sought: further research or development support.
younger staff. Furthermore, in all countries
there was a significant association between Offer ID: 3701
low WAI scores and the declared inten-
tion to leave nursing. This was especially
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true among younger

nurses, since they are
offered more employ-
ment opportunities to
Maintaining a sufficient pool of active improve their work-
nurses in Europe will be a major challenge ing and personal con-
in the forthcoming decades. Demographic ditions. Poor leader-
changes will lead to an increasing demand ship and staff s social
in the future and most countries within the relationships were the
EU already face a shortage. At present, the main factors affecting
vast majority of nursing staff leave the pro- the perceived working
fession prior to the normal retirement age. ability of nurses across
Europe. Indeed, work-
The NEXT study used the work ability index load and the availability
(WAI) to investigate the reasons behind of good information in
CFRes_02b.indd 7 25-02-2008 13:56:20

new insights on fish disease infected fish near fish cultures implies that
feral fish could act as infection reservoirs.
Ensuring that fish populations across the EU remain healthy and disease-free This information could have an important
is not only a matter of environmental protection, but also of economic necessity. impact on the development of prophylac-
tic measures to ensure the health and well-
One of the most prevalent pathogens affect- responses. The Israeli National Center for being of wild and cultured fish in the Medi-
ing Mediterranean fish cultures in particular Mariculture carried out a series of surveys terranean region.
is Myxidium leei (Myxozoa). Sparus aurata examining the spread of the disease across
(commonly known as the gilthead bream) wild fish populations in 10 sites in the Medi-
was the point of focus for the EU-funded terranean Sea and the Red Sea. Participating
MyxFishControl project, which sought to countries included France, Greece, Israel,
enrich the knowledge base on myxidiosis. Italy and Spain. Funded under the FP5 programme Life quality
Project partners studied the epidemiological A total of 2 260 fish was examined, and 55 Collaboration sought: information exchange/training.
aspects of the disease as well as mechanisms individual fish were found to be positive for
of transmission, pathogenesis and immune myxidiosis. The geographic proximity of Offer ID: 3691
salmon stress levels from sea lice tocrit, red blood cell count, and increases
in chloride and glucose lactate in plasma.
Farmed fish are particularly prone to disease and infection. Research Results overall concluded that infestation of
has been carried out to ascertain which levels of the parasite Lepeophtheirus more than 20 lice per fish caused the onset
salmonis (L. salmonis) induce physiological stress in the fish. of physiological stress symptoms.
Sound and sustainable management of workers at St Andrews University in Scotland Recommendations regarding this important
farmed fish stocks is crucial for many rea- on the effects of the sea louse (L. salmonis) threshold for sea lice burden have been
sons. Perhaps the most obvious is to fill the on farmed fish. The life cycle of this unwel- published for the benefit of both the aqua-
gap in the market for consumer favourites come visitor includes stages where the culture and wild fish industries. This will
such as salmon and help to preserve wild parasite is attached to the fish, followed by provide valuable information for the formu-
populations. Equally important, farmed motile stages when the majority of the harm lation of policy development in fish stock
fish stocks constitute a valuable portion of is done to the host. management.
the local economy for angling activities and
farming income in peripheral north-west- The scientists conducted trials to determine
ern areas of Europe. the level of sea lice infestation that was suf-
ficient to cause physiological stress in the Funded under the FP5 programme Life quality
As a broad objective, Sumbaws, an EU- fish. Experimental conditions were set up (Quality of life and management of living resources).
funded project, investigated the interactions to simulate realistic environmental condi- Collaboration sought: further research or development support.
between wild and farmed salmonids. The tions. Physiological parameters that indi-
scope of this project also included research by cated stress included decreases in haema- Offer ID: 3570
Model for sea lice infection of salmonids infection for this parasite can be kept to a
minimum. Furthermore, the two systems
The protection of wild salmon populations is of prime importance. can coexist for the maximum safety and
EU scientists have devised a multivariate model to predict their predisposition conservation of salmonid fish stocks.
to sea lice infection within regions of a fjord.
The prospect of the establishment of a new Uses of the model include evaluation of
fish farm involves many decisions. Choice levels of salmonid infestation by lice and a Collaboration sought: further research or development support.
of site is crucial and an array of factors can safety gauge to judge whether wild salmo-
be significant. Productivity can be affected nids will be harmed. It can also be used Offer ID: 3591
by climate, water source and quality, land to predict the chances of lice infection in
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topography, soil, and available infrastruc- smolts at specific sites in

ture. Environmental factors include pollu- the waterway. The model
tion and sensitive ecological niches. can therefore assess the
effects of the establish-
Partners in the Sumbaws project have investi- ment of a new farm on
gated one of the factors pertinent to wild sal- the wild populations of
monids, namely the risk of infection by sea salmonids. Potential nega-
lice in different areas of a fjord. Indirectly tive effects can be evalu-
this is applicable to the farmed fish because ated and a fully informed
the model can also be used to predict risk of decision be made about the
infection in the aquacultural situation. The location of a new farm.
preparatory research for this was the study of
temporal and spatial distribution of post-smolt Thus, using this model, the
salmonids in a Norwegian fjord system by the possible phenomenon of
countrys Institute for Nature Research. farmed fish being a pool of
CFRes_02b.indd 8 25-02-2008 13:56:24

Improving welfare in fish farms Melatonin is found at different levels during the
daily cycle and is considered to be a powerful
The Fishcal project studied the production and receptor distribution antioxidant protecting the nuclear and
of one of the key fish hormones, melatonin. mitochondrial DNA. Researchers gained a
better insight into melatonin concentration

Efficient fish farming techniques are directly Additionally, the project researched calcium levels dependent on the daily light-dark cycle
related to appropriate feeding and hus- homeostasis during early life and normal for different age populations and tissues. The
bandry standards in order to improve fish growth in addition to the effects of para- profile of melatonin production and recep-
welfare. Shedding light on the importance thyroid hormone-related protein (PTHrP) tor distribution constitutes a valuable tool
of calcium in fish culture, the Fishcal project on homeostasis. Moreover, the molecular for studying the hormones interaction with
studied different sources of calcium during mechanisms underpinning bone formation PTHrP, which is related to calcium transfer.
fish development, growth and reproduction. in fish and the way in which PTHrP regu-
As calcium also plays a significant role in lates this process were also explored. Part of (Quality of life and management of living resources).
proper skeleton formation, the project work the project work involved the study of mela-
Collaboration sought: information exchange/training.
is directly related to the issue of skeleton tonin, a hormone found in all living organ-
abnormalities in fish. isms from algae to humans. Offer ID: 3569
Methods for evaluating and modelling fisheries various processes and model uncertainty
regarding knowledge of fisheries systems
A generic software framework for fisheries modelling and the dynamics, their response to management
evaluation of management strategies has been developed. and the ability to monitor, assess and con-
trol them.
Fishery systems and interaction among be created. These can be stipulated on an
management, exploitation, environment array of stock and fleet assumptions in The framework is currently used to pro-
and biology are complex in nature. Thus which current and alternative management duce bio-economic models, multi-annual
responses to management actions are not strategies can be assessed. The R in FLR is a management plans and fishery-independ-
always easy to predict. The Framework for free, open-source, multi-platform software ent assessment methods inside numerous
the evaluation of management strategies environment for statistical computing and EU projects. The FLR Concurrent versions
(FEMS) project has proposed a computer graphics. It provides a multitude of software system (CVS) project can be found online
simulation framework which allows evalu- tools and can also include packages such as at http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=
ations of the performance of management libraries. 108356. All modules are available for
strategies. These strategies are based on browsing via the CVS tree.
current and improved biological knowledge All users have access to the code, allowing
and management procedures. numerous developers from various projects, Funded under the FP5 programme Life quality
bodies or institutes with different objectives (Quality of life and management of living resources).
Under these auspices, the software frame- to collaborate on coding. Hence, users can Collaboration sought: further research or development support.
work Fisheries library in R (FLR) was learn from each other and the process can
designed. It allows simulation models to be accelerated. The framework can include Offer ID: 3518
recommendations for aquaculture in economical and in environmental terms.

Therefore, a lower threshold of lice levels in
and game angling both the wild and farmed fish sectors needs
to be considered as acceptable. In order to
A summary which focused on economic impact analyses of the continue obtaining scientific data on the
aquaculture and game angling industries in Ireland, Norway and health and performance of wild stocks,
Scotland has been produced, complete with recommendations. monitoring of these stocks should be given
the highest priority.
The Sumbaws project has examined the taining and enhancing small amounts of sal-
decrease of wild salmonid populations in monid stock in a sustainable context with
north-western Europe as well as aspects of only little management intervention.
the migratory behaviour and physiological Collaboration sought: further research or development support.
responses of young salmonids. Further- Following this, a summary was produced
more, it has provided current appraisals which highlighted an economic impact Offer ID: 3630
and modelling of the socioeconomic signifi- analysis of the aquaculture and game angling
cance and interaction of the aquaculture and industries in Ireland, Norway and Scotland.
game angling industries in remote regions It showed that both angling and aquaculture
of north-western Europe. are important sources of employment, usu-
ally in remote rural regions. Furthermore,
A multidisciplinary approach was taken it became evident that treating wild smolts
during the research. Academic and applied against sea lice infection has fallen short as
scientists, an SME consultancy as well as an an adequate management or conservation
industrial pharmaceutical company joined strategy.
8
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efforts to quantify the lice infestation lev-

els causing physiological stress on host fish. Eliminating ovigerous (egg-bearing) lice
They also assessed the possibilities of main- on farms was found to be too costly, both
CFRes_02b.indd 9 25-02-2008 13:56:27

Muscle decline and physical and older men. Greater stiffness in women
may be due to disparities in the muscle tissue,
training in the elderly explaining in part their greater frequency of
falling. The third study investigated the degree
Musculoskeletal frailty is the limiting factor for the mobility, balance and of recovery of motor function following a six-
endurance of elderly people. Therefore, a major effort to understand and mitigate month strength-training programme. The
the phenomenon of frailty appears necessary for maintaining quality of life. reduced stiffness may be due to structural and
neural adaptations, counterbalancing some of
The Better-ageing project researched the the ankle. Although a training programme the effects of the neuromuscular ageing.
causes of frailty and evaluated the bene- in old age is highly effective in recovering
fits of a training programme for the very strength, it does not appear to improve the Research of this nature into the possible
old. The project evaluated neuromuscular reflex activity of the muscles. These were reversal of the effects of ageing can only
function in older individuals, since one of found to decline in older adults, suggesting improve quality of life for elderly people. Mus-
the characteristics of ageing is a decrease in that this change could be linked to degen- culoskeletal frailty is the main factor affecting
muscle mass and strength. erative phenomena. independent living until death. Social exclu-
sion can therefore be avoided by maintaining
The decline in neuromuscular function and The plasticity of muscle elastic properties in mobility and postural stability as well as the
performance with ageing can be estimated older individuals was also evaluated follow- ability for self-care and preventing falls.
by the measure of the maximal voluntary ing a strength-training programme. The first
contraction (MVC) torque. However, this study determined stiffness during planar Funded under the FP5 programme Life quality
impairment of strength is muscle group flexion in young and older people. This was (Quality of life and management of living resources).
dependent. The project investigated the similar between the age groups, suggesting Collaboration sought: further research or development support.
effects of a six-month strength-training pro- an adaptive mechanism. The second study
gramme on the major muscle groups around examined differences between older women Offer ID: 3681
anti-ageing treatment for T cells to proliferate were reduced. Furthermore,

DNA damage was reduced in both trials.
Conditions associated with an ageing and compromised immune system
include cancer and increased risk of infection. Scientists have researched the It has been speculated that these data are
potential anti-senescent effects of various treatments on human T cells. a result of an effect of an overall change in
redox balance in the cell. This may affect
The discovery of agents that will delay age- nity and are important in dealing with can- reactive oxygen species (ROS) mediated
ing or senescence in cells is an attractive cer cells and viruses. cell pathways. One of these is the mitogen-
lure. Not only will it be very profitable, but it activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway,
will revolutionise the lives of elderly or frail The project team from Nottingham Trent which is responsible for the activation of cell
individuals. Ageing will hopefully be free of University conducted trials for various division.
diseases that are the result of senescing and treatment strategies for ageing or senes-
malfunctioning cells. cence in T cells that were cultured in The project partners planned further
vitro. Variables or indicators of senes- research based on these findings to verify
The EU-funded T cell immunity and cence measured were DNA damage levels, these results. The ultimate aim is to offer
ageing (T-CIA) project concentrated its lifespan in culture and the ability to divide therapies for ageing at a cellular level.
efforts on ageing in T cells. These cells are or proliferate.
highly important in the human immune Funded under the FP5 programme Life quality
system and become specific for a molecular Reduced oxygen tension and the addition (Quality of life and management of living resources).
target or antigen once they have been of an antioxidant, superoxide dismutase Collaboration sought: further research or development support.
exposed to the invader. They therefore induced the same effects on the cultured
form part of the adaptive system of immu- cells. In both cases, lifespan and the ability Offer ID: 3682
genetic damage in elderly immune systems T cells and their capacity to repair these
errors as they were aged in vitro.
Susceptibility to infectious disease and cancer are two major effects
of an ageing immune system although some people appear to be far T cell clones (TCCs) were studied from three
less affected than others. Researchers have investigated the molecular main groups aged 26, 45, and 80 and over.
mechanisms that help to keep some of us healthy well into old age. The clones were observed in culture until
they underwent apoptosis, i.e. programmed
Cell ageing receives a lot of media and sci- a result of a compromised immune system, cell death. The cells were also subjected to
entific attention. It is not only the realm of the ageing process would not necessarily various chemical DNA-damaging agents as
the cosmetics and nutraceutical industries. mean such a reduction in life quality. well as ultraviolet irradiation.
Pharmaceutical therapy is a potentially mas-
sive area as cell ageing is responsible for many Partners in the T cell immunity and ageing Two repair systems were under scrutiny. These
of the degenerative diseases all too evident in (T-CIA) project researched the genetic basis were poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP),
the elderly population. The ageing process is of ageing in human T lymphocytes, one of an enzyme which activates and recruits DNA
multifaceted, and the ageing of the immune the main agents of the adaptive defence sys- repair enzymes, and the mismatch repair
system is one important aspect. Without the tem. The team at Nottingham Trent Univer-
disabling effects of diseases like cancer, often sity investigated genetic damage in human continued on page 11
CFRes_02b.indd 10 25-02-2008 13:56:30

high-density gene map for the fruit fly methods and links to important relevant
sites. Information downloadable from the
The fruit fly Drosophila (D.) melanogaster, so commonly used in genetic studies, website on specified regions includes the
has proved its usefulness yet again. Researchers have produced a new high-speed, alleles, position in the genome (arm region
state-of-the-art mapping technique to facilitate the study of new mutations. and position), flanking sequences and

details of the amplification primers. There
Unravelling the human genome relies heavily are widely and evenly spaced throughout the is also a direct link through GBrowse that
on functional genomic studies in Drosophila. genome. Construction of the SNP map was gives a pictorial version of sequences.
Partners in the FlySNP project focused on achieved in three phases, working from an
the production of a fine-resolution genome initial low density to a medium density and The work achieved by the team has devel-
map to facilitate the assignment of func- then to the high-density map. To achieve oped the SNP mapping technique which has
tions to any given gene. Single nucleotide this, the team utilised the Drosophila gen- cut the onerous task of mapping from years,
polymorphisms (SNPs), or genetic vari- etic database FlyBase for comparison of the in some cases, to a matter of a few months.
ants that are different in respect of one SNPs that were selected, sequenced and This allows researchers to concentrate their
nucleotide only, occur very frequently in amplified. Automatic SNP detection by the valuable time on further analysis of the
D. melanogaster. Due to their high incidence PolyBayes software package was followed genes and location of new mutations.
and their phenotypic expression, they are by the application of quality criteria and
highly suitable for use as markers for muta- then visual inspection of the alignments to
tions. These mutations, once located, can increase reliability.
then be cloned for further study. Funded under the FP5 programme Life quality
For interested users, the SNP map is shown (Quality of life and management of living resources).
A team at the Austrian Academy of Sciences via the project database (see http://flysnp. Collaboration sought: information exchange/training.
in Austria created a high-density SNP map imp.ac.at/flysnpdb.php). This site provides
with over 2 000 markers. Importantly, these an introduction to the project, a user guide, Offer ID: 3702
Intranasal flu vaccines ommendations. Firstly, for effective immu-

nisation against avian flu, H5N3, it was
Researchers have organised clinical trials for a variety of influenza strains suggested that a stronger adjuvant be used,
to test the efficacy of mucosal vaccines for intranasal application. probably another Escherichia coli mutant.
Also, cell-mediated immunity studies sug-
Human trials for highly infective agents like virus is notorious for the development of gested that there should be a longer period
avian flu need to be carefully monitored new strains. Consequently, combinations between the two immunisations to allow the
and controlled. A clinical trial under the of different strains were tested, including development of immunological memory.
auspices of the European MUCADJ project avian and swine flu variants. Vaccines were
was conducted at the University of Leicester applied using a non-toxic enterotoxin as The vaccinology in this project has real
in the United Kingdom. All of the 84 volun- an adjuvant. An adjuvant is an agent that potential in the development of safe, effica-
teers were carefully monitored for possible modifies the action of another agent and is cious vaccines against important diseases.
side-effects. An air courier service was used used to enhance the immune action of the Mucosal vaccinology and parenteral (nee-
to deliver blood and secretion samples the vaccine. dle-free) vaccination generally are areas
same day for cell-mediated immunity moni- with great potential for pain- and discom-
toring. A clinical database in Amsterdam Results were both encouraging and inform- fort-free application.
was used to record the data and produce a ative inasmuch as they provided a base for
full clinical study report. amendments to current vaccination strat- Funded under the FP5 programme Life quality
egies. Most notably, a trivalent vaccine pro- (Quality of life and management of living resources).
Vaccines were applied, both intranasally duced a systemic response against the swine Collaboration sought: further research or development support.
for the experimental group and intramus- flu (virus A) and influenza strain B, albeit a
cularly in the control volunteers. The flu reduced response. There were two main rec- Offer ID: 3574
continued from page 10 genetic damage in elderly immune systems

8
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(MMR) systems. Both mechanisms were Further research will help to uncover the
impaired during cell ageing in the two more genetic and molecular mechanisms as to
youthful samples, but in the 80-year old cell, why some people age with more ease and
they appeared to be more efficient. comfort than others. From the point of view
of resistance to disease and cancer, the age-
Furthermore, older donors appeared to ing of the immune system no doubt holds
have intact DNA in the area of the telo- some important clues.
mere, according to a new fluorescent in situ
hybridisation (FISH) technique. The telo- Funded under the FP5 programme Life quality
mere is found at the end of chromosomes (Quality of life and management of living resources).
and tends to disintegrate with every cell div- Collaboration sought: further research or development support.
ision. The theory is that this region protects
valuable DNA further down the chromo- Offer ID: 3661
some and disorganising it causes the divid-
ing cell to make genetic mistakes. see also page 16 (offer 3638)
CFRes_02b.indd 11 25-02-2008 13:56:33

Improving ruminant diets this proteolysis process could be via the
ingestion of appropriate plant materials, con-
Improving the dietary status of farm animals, including ruminants, forms taining natural proteolytic inhibitors. These
an important policy area for the European Commission. As such, the reduction plants and extracts include plant materials
of antibiotic and chemical additive intake is a priority topic in this agenda. from Helianthemum canum, Arctostaphy-
los uva-ursi, Epilobium montanum, Knautia

The EU-funded Rumen-up project focused bloating, methane production and nitrogen arvensis and Peltiphyllum peltatum.
on the development of new plants and plant secretions. The overall aim was to improve ani-
extracts that would reduce lactic acidosis, mal welfare and also protect the environment. It is therefore possible to modify the long-
term metabolic status of ruminants by
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Under normal conditions, nitrogen is replacing chemical additives with plant
retained poorly by the digestive tract extracts, thereby improving their environ-
of ruminants, and it is excreted via mental record and improving animal wel-
the urinary tract. The low rates of fare. These results could be of value to bio-
nitrogen retention have shown to technology companies involved in animal
be a financial loss as well as a cause nutrition as well as academic institutions
of stress for the animal and a source with similar research projects.
of environmental pollution.
Funded under the FP5 programme IST
Therefore, decreasing the rate of (User-friendly information society).
protein breakdown to ammonia Collaboration sought: information exchange/training.
could be of great value to different
stakeholders. The way to reduce Offer ID: 3599
Using plants to decrease methane emissions lution since methane formation is prevented
and nitrogen excretions are decreased.
Plant-based solutions have been developed to alleviate methane
emissions caused by imbalances in digestion in ruminants. This advancement in organic farming is
beneficial for the EUs biotech and agricul-
Bloat and acidosis are distressing disorders for sustainable solutions. This has been achieved tural industries and can also increase crop
ruminants. They are caused by a malfunction through the development of new plants or diversity.
of microbial digestion in the rumen. Methane, plant extracts as dietary supplements in place
a potent greenhouse gas, and ammonia are a of chemical additives and antibiotics. Plant Funded under the FP5 programme Life quality
result of normal rumen fermentation. materials were obtained from botanical and (Quality of life and management of living resources).
industrial collections and then assessed for Collaboration sought: further research or development support.
As a way to alleviate these problems, the their potential to lessen nutritional stress in
Rumen-up project has created plant-based ruminants. It is also a way to decrease pol- Offer ID: 3660
Meadow plants reduce unwanted protozoa meadow plants, for example groundsel, are
toxic to ruminants. Careful management, how-
Scientists, as part of the EU-funded Rumen-up project, investigated ever, combined with biotechnological know-
the effects of protozoa in ruminants on the efficiency of protein utilisation. how, can yield a highly productive regime,
with limited damage to the environment.
Ruminants are notoriously inefficient in the numbers of protozoa would increase
when it comes to nitrogen utilisation. This the efficiency of nitrogen utilisation. This is
has a knock-on effect on the environment due to the fact that these single-cell maraud-
because of nitrogen excretion in the urine ers consume vast quantities of the bacterial Collaboration sought: licence agreement.
and faeces. Consequently, there will also be fauna in the rumen. As the microbes digest
a reduced protein content in livestock prod- and ferment the fodder, reduction in the Offer ID: 3623
ucts, meat and milk. population size of the bacteria can reduce
8
the yield of protein from microbial action.

ShutterStock, 200
The extent to which the grazer will assimi-

late nitrogen from the food is partly depend- The team discovered that this can be reme-
ent on the contents of its rumen. This first died by administration of extracts of meadow
chamber in the alimentary canal is a seeth- plants in the livestock drinking water. These
ing mass of microbes, predominantly bac- plants, once a natural feature of old grazing
teria and single-cell animals (protozoa). It pastures, are all too often missing from mod-
is a dynamic ecosystem in its own right and ern intensive feeding regimes. They include
this delicate balance is inevitably affected by the daisy (B. perennis), pussy willow with its
the diet of the animal. furry flower structures (Salix caprea) and the
stinging nettle (Urtica diocia).
Scientists at the Rowett Research Institute in
Scotland investigated the effects of the pro- It would perhaps be impractical to reintro-
tozoan population on nitrogen retention in duce the farming conditions prevalent prior
the rumen. They established that a reduction to large-scale mechanisation. Indeed, certain
CFRes_02b.indd 12 25-02-2008 13:56:41

Mapping for mastitis resistance Mapping using this so-called linkage dis-
equilibrium (LD) technique demands a lot
Milk production accounts for 18 % of the EUs agricultural production. of information. Therefore, the team at the
Researchers have investigated the genetics of resistance to mastitis, a disease Animal Genetics and Genomics Centre
that causes severe losses throughout the dairy industry. at Lelystad in the Netherlands used a vast

amount of historical data. This mapping
Mastitis inflammation of the udder in ance are alternative strategies. To date, how- method has been used very successfully on
cattle causes loss of milk quality and ever, breeding programmes have largely the human genome, with a high degree of
lost milking days while the animal is being neglected the inclusion of resistance to resolution achieved.
treated. Treatments for mastitis include mastitis because the degree of heritability is
antibiotics, which are becoming increas- relatively low. In refining this technique, the team devel-
ingly unpopular within Europe. Improved oped methods to calculate the identical
hygiene, husbandry and selection for resist- The partners in the Mastitis resistance by descent (IBD) probability, taking into
project aimed to address this omission in account the families and breeds in the
8 conventional breeding programmes. They study. An IBD matrix that required verifi-
ShutterStock, 200
concentrated their research on provid- cation was then constructed. Comparing all
ing breeding tools to improve the genetic founder haplotypes (statistically associated
resistance to this distressing disease. To do genetic variants) with the resulting matrix
this, they set about fine-mapping the chro- was then undertaken. Because of the vast
mosomes of cattle to determine the prox- numbers of haplotypes to be compared, the
imity of resistance genes to marker traits group programmed several ways to cluster
that can be easily identified. Marker- these variants.
assisted selection (MAS) in a breeding
programme could then be employed. Due to the huge quantity of information
used as input, future fine-mapping using LD
Chromosome mapping can be per- linkage analysis will require more computer
formed using linkage studies. The prin- resources. These results, however, have
ciple depends on the probability of undoubtedly paved the way towards control
separation of the genes on formation of the disease using breeding by the selec-
of the gametes when the chromosomes tion of identifiable markers associated with
break and recombine at certain points. mastitis resistance polymorphisms.
Generally speaking, if the probability
of recombination is high, it follows
the genes are far apart because there Funded under the FP5 programme Life quality
will be more breaks. The converse is, (Quality of life and management of living resources).
of course, also true. The closer they Collaboration sought: further research or development support.
are, the fewer times they will be split
apart from each other. Offer ID: 3703
dendritic cells fight foot-and-mouth disease This could confer defence against the virus
before the acquired immunity of antibody
The foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) still poses a constant production was fully developed.
threat to livestock health in Europe. The most efficient means of stimulating
protective responses against this disease have been investigated. These findings constitute important factors
in the possible development of new vaccin-
Foot-and-mouth disease is devastating to are important players in the mammalian ation strategies. Efficient activation of spe-
livestock for several reasons. It is highly immune response, and they control lym- cific immune defences may well provide the
infectious, and the acute phase is followed phocytes that respond to specific antigens. key to the eradication or effective control of
by a time where there are no symptoms. Two variants of the virus were studied. The this disease.
Carrier animals can therefore pose a sig- results indicated that there was a more effi-
nificant risk to healthy stock. Moreover, the cient uptake and binding of the virus if it
virus can persist in straw and hay for up to was the heparan sulfate-binding variant. It
20 weeks. was also confirmed that uptake and reten- Collaboration sought: further research or development support.
tion of the virus are essential for the induc-
The FMD tropism project set about try- tion of lymphocyte activity. Offer ID: 3572
ing to unravel the complex molecular biol-
ogy surrounding viral movement and per- Secondly, they focused on the interaction
sistence in the host. This, the team hoped, of FMDV with natural interferon-produc-
would lead to the prevention or cure of this ing cells (NIPCs), also a type of DC. They
dangerous carrier state. Scientists at the discovered that interferon production was
Institute of Virology in Switzerland investi- only induced when live FMDV was com-
gated the role of dendritic cells (DCs) in the plexed with immune immunoglobulin G,
shaping of the immune response. the most common type of antibody found in
the system. Encouragingly, the presence of
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First, they investigated the way in which NIPCs and therefore interferon could con-
FMDV interacts with DCs. These cells stitute a form of innate or natural immunity.
CFRes_02b.indd 13 25-02-2008 13:56:48

research network for chromosome imbalances CGH) and multiplex ligation-dependent
probe amplification (MLPA).
Current gene analysis techniques and database technology have facilitated
the storage, exchange, analysis and access to genetic information. The The aim of the website is to make the data-
Ecaruca project has collected medical data on chromosomal aberrations base easily accessible to all participants and
and set up a database for optimum information retrieval. to encourage the exchange of information
and technical knowledge. In order to fur-
The human genome consists of approxi- have set up a microdeletion research net- ther facilitate communication, a network of
mately three billion base pairs. The number work that consists of seven scientific groups. national coordinators has been set up, one in
of mutations possible is therefore very These are distributed throughout Europe each participating country of the European
large indeed, and the pace of discovery is and are all working in cooperation on chro- Cytogenetics Association. They will submit
advancing at an exponential rate. Types of mosomal microdeletions. Their efforts cen- new cases, cytogenetic information and clin-
mutation include alterations in one gene tre on the identification of the mutation and ical data to the Ecaruca database. Access to
only, and changes on a bigger scale that the genes involved. Information is dissemin- this database can help doctors and medical
involve the whole or part of a chromosome. ated primarily through the project website: care workers to improve the care provided
Project partners in Ecaruca have focused http://www.Ecaruca.net to affected individuals and their families.
their attention on smaller chromosomal
changes. These include microdeletions, Massive jumps in technology as regards
where a small part of the genome is miss- DNA analysis mean that geneticists can
ing, and microduplications, where a tiny, identify previously unrecognisable microde- Funded under the FP5 programme Life quality
also submicroscopic region is duplicated. letions and duplications and link these with (Quality of life and management of living resources).
associated syndromes. The analyses used by Collaboration sought: information exchange/training.
Clinical geneticists at the Radboud Univer- the project groups include microarray-based
sity Nijmegen Centre in the Netherlands comparative genomic hybridisation (array Offer ID: 3600
Throwing light on chromosomal disorders managers. Information updates are dissem-

inated regularly by means of a newsletter.
A website has been set up as a dedicated information point to inform
both experts and patients about rare chromosomal disorders. Ecaruca is currently being visited by more
than 300 people per week. Over 500 profes-
Finding information about rare chromo- The Ecaruca website has both public and sionals in the field of clinical cytogenetics
somal aberrations can be difficult both private pages that users can access. Public have accounts and access the site regularly.
for patients and doctors. It is a vast sub- pages, which can be accessed by the general The website is proving successful for con-
ject area, and geneticists are now working public, give details about the projects object- necting patients with chromosomal disor-
with new techniques for detecting abnor- ives and general downloadable information ders, their families, doctors, scientists and
malities, which means that the number about chromosomal disorders. The private all others involved in the area of chromo-
of identified abnormalities will rise. The pages, which can only be accessed with somal aberrations. It is hoped that Ecaruca
Ecaruca website was launched as a way password protection by registered account will become an international forum for clin-
of clarifying and organising information holders, contain patients personal data, ical cytogenetics.
about the subject. The Ecaruca project lists of participating centres, a case-of-the-
allows everyone who has an interest in month study and a search facility organised Funded under the FP5 programme Life quality
chromosomal abnormalities to access cur- by chromosomal aberration. There are also
rent information about the subject and restricted pages for childrens cases that can Collaboration sought: further research or development support.
connect with others including patients, be accessed by their parents, who can then
their families and professionals. send follow-up information to the database Offer ID: 3637
health supplements from fungi

The production of health supplements using biotechnology rather than industrial
means is a rapidly expanding area. As part of a European project, scientists researched
the production of ubiquinone, an important respiratory enzyme, from fungal species.
Coenzyme Q, or ubiquinone, is a famil- of carotenoids by different fungal species.

iar name on the vitamins and supplements Carotenoids share a chemical relationship
shelf with good reason. It is a strong anti- with coenzyme Q in that they are part of
oxidant and therefore protects against those the large group of terpenoids. Project part-
8
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scavenging free radicals. Research has shown ners at the University of Seville focused
that it can reduce blood pressure and be used their research skills on the coenzyme and
in the treatment of certain cancers. It occurs its production pathways in the fungal group
naturally in the body, mainly in the heart, Zygomycetes.
but unfortunately its concentration in tissues were made up of the equivalent of produc-
can decrease from about the age of 35. Using radioactive tracer molecules, they tion departments in a factory. Each sub-
followed the production of coenzyme Q cellular compartment produced its own
Scientists in the EU-funded Fungal carote- and other target compounds, for example
noids project investigated the production carotene. They found that these fungal cells continued on page 15
CFRes_02b.indd 14 25-02-2008 13:56:54

reproductive health of young lithuanian men Studies were carried out on the reproductive
function of young men in Lithuania, using
There has been an increasing incidence of male reproductive health military conscripts as subjects. Researchers
disorders across Europe. As part of a wider EU study, tests were carried out recorded their physical appearance and tes-
on the reproductive health of a sample of young Lithuanian men. tis volume, which was measured using an

8 orchidometer and ultrasound. Semen qual-
Over the last 50 years, ences across Europe. It has also been found ity (sperm concentration, motility and mor-
ShutterStock, 200
there has been dramatic that there are differences in sperm counts phology) and reproductive hormone levels in
change for the worse between selected EU countries. The preva- blood samples were also measured.
with regard to male lence of other disorders of the male reproduc-
reproductive health. tive tract also appears to be increasing. These The findings have also taken into account
A number of coun- include conditions such as hypospadias (the information on lifestyle, antenatal and child-
tries have reported misplacement of the urethral opening) and hood exposure as well as previous or current
a decline in average cryptorchidism (the absence of testes). diseases. The data will be compared with
sperm counts. During findings from other EU countries. Add-
this period, the inci- Poor reproductive health leading to illness itional information is being provided from
dence of testicular or childlessness obviously has an impact on the Baltic area to the centralised European
cancer has increased, the quality of life of the affected individual. database on male reproductive health.
and it is now the There may also be a large social impact, with
most common type changes in the age composition of European
of cancer in young populations over the next 20 to 30 years. The
males. However, increased knowledge obtained during the Collaboration sought: further research or development support,
information exchange/training.
there are marked Envir. reprod. health project may help to
geographic differ- identify the causes of these adverse trends. Offer ID: 3671
software approach for understanding ware and a set of standard queries built into
the database.
mitogen-activated protein kinase
The mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) is perhaps the most important (Quality of life and management of living resources).
signalling pathway at the cellular level, involved in a myriad of biological Collaboration sought: further research or development support.
processes from growth and development through to pathogenesis.
Offer ID: 3650
The EU-funded MAPK signalling project using 2-dimensional (2D) gels. The overall
set out to elucidate the spatio-temporal aim was to model the MAPK pathway using
8
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organisation of the pathway and how that these high-through-
organisation impacts function. In other put proteomic data.
words, even though scientists are now Part of that goal was
aware of the pathways set-up, little is known reached through the
regarding the pathways involvement in all development of a
the different processes. specific portal used
to manage 2D gel
The Beatson Institute for Cancer Research, a data and delineat-
project partner, focused on the development ing protein-protein
of the appropriate tools for the processing interactions.
of protein and gene expression data. These
tools form an essential part of research The online database
efforts within the framework of the project, was designed on the
given the amount of information that needs .NET platform and que-
to be processed and interpreted. rying the database can
be achieved through a
Researchers tried to identify proteins that variety of means. These
can be used for protein expression studies include third-party soft-
continued from page 14 health supplements from fungi
end-product and possessed its own pool of sources both caused upregulation of ubi- duction lines. The health of the consumer,
metabolites or raw materials. quinone. Moreover, they found that fun- food, pharmaceutical and biotechnology
gal genus or the source of the coenzyme is industries all stand to benefit from this line
With commercial production in mind, the sometimes important. The antibiotic oligo- of research.
scientists also investigated how production mycin increases production in Phycomeces, Funded under the FP5 programme Life quality
of ubiquinone varies with environmental but not Blakeslea. (Quality of life and management of living resources).
conditions. The presence of carotene or
illumination had no effect. By contrast This work could act as a platform for further
though, leucine and acetate as carbon research projects for these microbial pro- Offer ID: 3580
CFRes_02b.indd 15 25-02-2008 13:57:03

disc cells under pressure to cause the lowering of the water content
within the cells. The results suggested that
Back pain exacts a very high price, both in terms of health costs these homeostatic responses were strongly
and suffering for the individual concerned. Scientists in the Eurodisc inhibited in cells under the stressful condi-
project researched the effects of physical and hydrostatic stresses tions imposed.
on the potential self-regeneration powers of intervertebral disc cells.

The scientists also investigated the bio-
The fact that intervertebral disc injuries are specifically investigated the effect of a range chemical pathways responsible for regen-
among the largest contributors to lost time of stress situations on the discs. eration and discovered several possibilities
at work is old news. However, it remains which could prove significant in the search
that the cost in terms of pain, disability Parameters tested were twofold. First, auto- for efficacious disc degeneration therapy.
and percentage GNP lost in Europe is very crine activity was measured, that is the abil-
large. Degeneration of these cartilaginous ity to stimulate self-proliferation by the cells This research could have important implica-
cushions between the vertebrae is a result of themselves. Discs have no blood supply, tions with regard to the signalling pathways
ageing, genetics and life style. Researchers at so the team reasoned that maintenance, or in intervertebral disc cells. Moreover, it could
the Demokritos Research Centre in Athens homeostasis, should therefore be reliant on well be an important clue to the reasons
factors secreted by the disc cells themselves. behind the degenerative pathway to disability
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Secondly, paracrine or chemical effects on that affects such a large part of the population.
neighbouring cells were estimated. For information on the project, please visit:
http://www.physiol.ox.ac.uk/EURODISC
The team subjected bovine and human disc
cell cultures to hydrostatic pressure and a
variety of physical stresses. These included Funded under the FP5 programme Life quality
low levels of glucose, low pH and oxygen (Quality of life and management of living resources).
tension and high osmolarity. High osmo- Collaboration sought: further research or development support.
larity occurs when the concentration of
certain molecules externally is sufficient Offer ID: 3601
The backbone of spine degeneration
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Back pain affects the sufferers quality of life and also represents
a serious financial burden on health services. The Eurodisc
project has researched the reasons behind senescence in
intervertebral discs as a potential key to effective therapy.
The human spine is a complex and dynamic herniated discs displayed the
structure. It can bear the weight of the head greatest percentage of aged
and yet offers the flexibility to sit, dance or cells as compared with other
lift loads. Until, that is, degeneration occurs. degenerative diseases. More-
This can happen all too early in life and then over, the tissue type within the
can lead to a path of disc herniation, pain disc was important. Each disc is
and chronic disability, particularly in elderly composed of a soft middle, the
individuals. nucleus pulposus, surrounded by
rings of connective tissue. Senes-
Partners in the Eurodisc project investigated cence was more commonly asso-
the links between ageing, the environment ciated with the soft nucleus where
and genetic factors that contribute to this cell clusters were seen to occur.
unfortunate spiral of decline. Cell senes-
cence is a phenomenon that has been linked These results have important
to degenerative diseases in other tissues. implications for the development of
This is when a cell is no longer able to suc- back ailments and their treatment.
cessfully divide to produce fresh daughter Firstly, tissue engineering is a real
cells. A team of scientists at the Robert Jones possibility for disc therapy whereby
and Agnes Hunt Hospital in Shropshire has replacement tissue is supplied. It
therefore specifically investigated if this pro- appears then that cells from degen-
cess, characteristic of ageing, occurs in dif- erative tissue would be unsuitable for
ferent tissues of the spinal disc. use. Secondly, the presence of senescent cells been further disseminated through peer
is generally associated with abnormal behav- meetings, journals and conferences.
The degree of senescence was assessed by iour in tissues and therefore may prove to be
means of two criteria. Firstly, a biomarker the root cause of spinal degeneration.
associated with senescence in tissues and
secondly, the number of cells in a cluster These results have been posted on the Collaboration sought: further research or development support.
which increases directly with the amount project website (http://www.physiol.ox.ac. Offer ID: 3638
of ageing. The researchers found that the uk/EURODISC). The project results are
degree of senescence varied according to well explained here for both the public and see also page 10
the type of degeneration. For example, interested academics in the field. They have (offers 3681, 3682 and 3661)
CFRes_02b.indd 16 25-02-2008 13:57:10

energY
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grasslands grow as energy source
The search for bioenergy and its related source fuels has kindled
research into different biomass products that could proffer the best
results for pyrolysis-based systems. In the context of the Bioenergy
energY
chains project, perennial grasses have notably proven to be of interest
for a research group at Aston University in Birmingham.
The universitys Bioenergy Research Group (BERG) intends to pro- One other factor
vide renewable and sustainable biomass resources to address found during the
tomorrows energy needs. As such, it applies chemical engin- research was that
eering science and technology to utilise the chemical energy of even without wash-
biomass. ing and with low pyrolysis liquid yields of 40 to 50 %, the oil could
have potential uses. Although it would be of poor quality, it could
In this regard, BERG has set out to evaluate the feasibility of the still prove suitable for applications such as industrial fuels or space
entire bioenergy chain. It found that perennial grasses with low heating. This would also be dependent upon whether or not the
alkali metal content would provide similar pyrolysis yields as oil could be suitably stored, for example through blending with
those obtained from clean wood feedstock. The environmental other biofuels such as bioethanol or biodiesel.
viability of this finding holds great promise, as grasslands are one
of the major biomes of the world. While the research does not yet present a cheap biofuel process
solution, it contributes towards a more effective understanding
Since it was found that alkali metal presence lowers pyrolysis of suitable sources of energy, generating an understanding as to
yields, alkali volume needs to be reliably controlled. One of the the best available options.
ways to ensure this is to wash the grass in clean water. The obs- Funded under the FP5 programme EESD (Energy, environment and sustainable development).
tacle remaining here is to determine the financial and technical
difficulties involved, and of course, to ensure the availability of
clean water supplies. Offer ID: 3696
leading to sustainable bioenergy gramme. Test runs showed that the combus-
tion characteristics and the problems occurring
Aiming to exploit biomass as an energy resource, the Bioenergy chains project during combustion were similar for all four
studied the performance of combustion tests of four selected perennial crops. perennial crops. Due to its extremely high
potassium, silicon and chlorine content, car-
Biomass encompasses any organic material Europe and are successively harvested, with doon was found unsuitable for combustion.
coming from plants or animals, with year-round availability of raw material.
resources including agricultural and forestry The tests provided valuable information on
residues as well as municipal solid and indus- All four perennial crops were subject to com- various aspects of combustion for the design of
trial wastes. The Bioenergy chains project bustion tests at a laboratory-scale fixed-bed an optimised combustion plant. Issues such as
studied the complete bioenergy chain from reactor as well as in a pilot-scale fixed-bed suitable fuel feeding and ash removal systems
biomass production to thermo-chemical combustion plant. Investigations also involved were also addressed, as was handling the prob-
conversion for a number of perennial crops, identification of possible operation problem of bottom ash formation. These results are
evaluating the chains technical, socioeco- lems. Examples of such problems included expected to contribute to increasing the share of
nomic and environmental feasibility aspects. fuel feeding, ash melting on the grate and in biomass in the energy production resources.
the furnace, ash transport systems as well as
The selected perennial crops were Arundo emissions (including nitrogen oxides, sulphur Funded under the FP5 programme EESD
donax (giant reed), Cynara cardunculus oxides and particulates). (Energy, environment and sustainable development).
(cardoon), Miscanthus x giganteus (miscanthus) Collaboration sought: information exchange/training.
and Panicum virgatum (switchgrass). These are Each crop was fully characterised and sub-
found in large field cultivations in southern jected to a comprehensive combustion test pro- Offer ID: 3723
database for energy insight and foster debate regarding the best practices
and alternative approaches. On this basis, pol-
into low-income rural housing icy options were created, and two international
Internet conferences took place to help dis-
A database containing country reports, country overviews and tribute the findings. Included in this dissem-
information regarding the field of energy has been created. ination is the database which was created.
This database can be accessed by the public at:
The EU-funded Spark-Net project consists The network began by drawing compari- http://www.sparknet.info/home.php
of a network of knowledge that operates as sons and contrasts between common current
Funded under the FP5 programme INCO 2
a virtual community meeting and publish- energy situations in rural households in each
(Confirming the international role of Community research).
ing through the Internet and e-mail. It has country. This helped to reveal policy alterna-
brought stakeholders together from eight tives and innovation opportunities. A know- Collaboration sought: further research or development support.
countries in southern and eastern Africa and ledge bank containing fundamental partici- Offer ID: 3609
three from the EU on the topic of energy in pants and projects was then created. This can
low-income rural households. determine the results of policies already in use see also page 23 (offer 3698)
CFRes_02b.indd 17 25-02-2008 13:57:14

rethinking silicon wafer technology than 10 cents and energy payback periods
are very attractive, in the order of just a few
A new reactor employing liquid phase epitaxy (LPE) technology built by the days.
University of Konstanz will help to make photovoltaic (PV) technology less expensive.
Further to these encouraging results, the
energY
The PV industry in Europe has been grow- tium. During the project, they developed a University of Konstanz is seeking patent
ing rapidly, so much so that the necessary reactor to create wafers from metallurgical protection for its new reactor. Driving down
raw materials are in short supply. This is not silicon using LPE, which enables extremely the cost per watt will provide impetus to the
only slowing PV adoption, but also driving thin but uniform silicon deposition. PV market and assist Europe in meeting the
up the price of the technology. The EESD challenging goals set for electricity produc-
programme funded the Treasure project to After successful laboratory trials, the Ger- tion from solar power.
reverse this worrisome trend by investigat- man physicists assessed the potential bene-
ing alternative sources of silicon. fits of expanding to industrial-scale pro- Funded under the FP5 programme EESD
duction. By combining several reactors in (Energy, environment and sustainable development).
Physicists with the University of Konstanz parallel, they estimated that enough wafers Collaboration sought: further research or development support.
in Germany contributed their experience in could be produced in one year to provide
PV manufacturing to the Treasure consor- 6 MW of power. The cost per wafer is less Offer ID: 3587
Thermally stable adhesive
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for vacuum applications
A discovery by a German company specialising
in the production of very thin films will make
energy-efficient glass coatings easier to manufacture.
The use of glass in building architecture has expansion of

become increasingly popular. Depending the metal and
on the local climate, the glass can be treated c e r am i c c om -
in order to optimise its thermal behaviour. ponents, a spe-
Specifically, extremely thin metallic layers cial adhesive was
are deposited using a technique called large required to secure
area magnetron sputtering to reduce the the targets to the
emissivity of the glass. cylindrical back-
ing tube. Unfortu-
The 3rd Genlac project consortium received nately, conventional
FP5 funding to develop new, thermally sta- adhesives do not fare well in the vacuum covery and is looking to establish a stra-
ble low-emissivity coatings. Heraeus Thin environment that is necessary for sputter- tegic partnership to proceed to the manu-
Film Materials GmbH, a 3rd Genlac part- ing. Further to an extensive investigation, facturing phase.
ner, contributed to the project objectives by the German material scientists managed to
making advances in magnetron sputtering develop a suitable adhesive with the requi- Funded under the FP5 programme EESD
with ceramic rotatable targets. site thermal stability. (Energy, environment and sustainable development).
Collaboration sought: manufacturing agreement.

To overcome long-standing difficulties Heraeus Thin Film Materials GmbH has
related to the different rates of thermal applied for patent protection for its dis- Offer ID: 3729
Magnetron sputtering with ary planar direct current sputtering cathode

filled with argon. A constant XRF signal
real-time thickness control indicates uniform output from the main
cylindrical rotatable sputtering source.
A feat of German engineering facilitates homogeneous deposition
of thin films via magnetron sputtering. The result is improved product The new set-up is suitable for architectural
quality and increased production with less system downtime. glazing applications where standards are
extremely high regarding the homogeneity
The Fraunhofer Institute for Surface Engin- gets in magnetron sputtering is their erosion of film thickness, such as low-emissivity
eering and Thin Films (Fraunhofer IST) over time, which can lead to inhomogeneous windows.
coordinated a three-year multimillion euro deposition rates. This can be addressed by
research project entitled 3rd Genlac with frequent calibration, but it results in lost
the aim of producing the next generation of production time.
optical coatings.
The German engineers came up with a novel Funded under the FP5 programme EESD
Fraunhofer IST is an expert in all kinds of solution that measures and adjusts for the (Energy, environment and sustainable development).
thin-film applications, including the use of rate of target erosion in real time. Specific- Collaboration sought: further research or development support.
large-area magnetron sputtering. One prob- ally, Fraunhofer IST uses x-ray fluorescence
lem that arises from the use of ceramic tar- (XRF) to measure target loss in a second- Offer ID: 3705
CFRes_02b.indd 18 25-02-2008 13:57:19

semiconductor waste makes of an industrial-scale process with multi-
megawatt annual production capacity.
highly efficient solar cells The encouraging results of an economic
feasibility study will help to drive further
The EESD programme funded a unique research project to recycle investment.
energY
semiconductor waste into raw materials for highly efficient solar cells.
The NESSI project results will help Europe to
The available stores of high-quality sil- charged with modifying cell process tech- attain the ambitious goals it has set regard-
icon have been declining as the popularity nology to convert low-quality multicrystal- ing electricity production from renewable
of solar cell applications continues to rise. line silicon (mc-Si) into n-type wafers. The energy sources such as solar power.
The NESSI project was conceived to inves- challenge was to cut costs without sacri-
tigate the feasibility of alternative sources of ficing performance.
lower-grade silicon, such as waste products Funded under the FP5 programme EESD
from the semiconductor industry. Using new sequences for surface passiva- (Energy, environment and sustainable development).
tion, Solar Energy was able to achieve high Collaboration sought: further research or development support.
The Solar Energy division of the Energy levels of cell efficiency. Extensive test-
Research Centre of the Netherlands was ing during NESSI led to the refinement Offer ID: 3728
designing durability into large rotor blades
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A new report from the Optimat blades project provides
practical advice to wind turbine manufacturers on ways to
improve the durability of their rotor blades.
European funding has been earmarked to materials such as glass fibre reinforced
help the wind energy industry meet the polyester (GFRP) were evaluated for their
increasing demand for carbon-free energy strength, stiffness and a number of other
production from renewable energy sources characteristics. The results were compiled
like the wind. Plans to build bigger systems in the OptiDAT database.
must first be preceded by research pro-
grammes to ensure reliability throughout Current industry practice regarding issues
the systems lifetime. such as repairs, strain rate effects, variable
amplitude loading, complex stress states
The Optimat blades project brought and constant life diagrams is reviewed in
together 17 wind turbine manufacturers, detail. Subsequently, proposals are made
academic institutions and research institutes based on the Optimat blades results. DNV
from eight EU Member States. Over four and its partner Germanischer Lloyd intend
years of research culminated in a compre- to incorporate these recommendations in
hensive report with nearly 40 specific design their future design guidelines.
recommendations for blade manufacturers.
Funded under the FP5 programme EESD
The reports author, Det Norske Veritas (Energy, environment and sustainable development).
(DNV), summarised the results of more Collaboration sought: further research or development support.
than 3 000 tests performed during Optimat
blades. Various blade designs using advanced Offer ID: 3704
bigger, stronger wind turbine blades setting for different damage mechanisms
(e.g. progressive fibre fracture).
To build bigger wind turbine blades, one first has to think small
since minute cracks can grow over time and eventually cause blade Interpretation and comparison of the mod-
failure. The Risoe National Laboratory (RNL) in Denmark has elled and measured ISV was used to fine-
developed validated modelling tools to assist in this process. tune the micro-scale mechanics modelling
approach. RNL has applied for copyright
The demand for larger wind turbines is RNL, an Optimat blades partner heavily protection of its Optimat blades research,
growing and will continue to grow as Euro- involved in research into alternative energy which can be utilised by blade manufac-
pean Member States look to comply with sources, investigated the issues of com- turers to resolve design flaws and material
increasingly stringent carbon dioxide emis- ponent fatigue and breakage. limitations during the prototyping phase.
sion targets. Blade manufacturers are turn-
ing to advanced polymer composite mater- RNLs work relied on the use of finite
ials in order to reduce blade weight while element methods (FEM) and Monte Carlo
retaining the necessary strength to with- simulations to model stresses and strains on Funded under the FP5 programme EESD
stand the increased blade loading. very small scales. These techniques enabled (Energy, environment and sustainable development).
the calculation of the theoretical internal Collaboration sought: further research or development support.
FP5 supported relevant research in this field state variable (ISV). Conversely, measure-
through the Optimat blades project. The ments of the ISV were made in a laboratory Offer ID: 3667
CFRes_02b.indd 19 25-02-2008 13:57:23

enVIronMenT
outreach for oceans
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Scientists have completed a very successful EU-backed
project that inspired schoolchildren worldwide to develop
an interest in the wonders of ocean and earth science.
enVIronMenT
The objectives of the EuroStrataForm project involved the study

of marine ecosystems from a biological, physical and geochem-
ical viewpoint. One ambitious part of this initiative originated at
the Oceanographic Department of the University of Southamp-
ton, one of the project partners. At the inception of the project,
a website was established (http://www.soc.soton.ac.uk/CHD/
EuroStrataForm). The site provided access to data, project forms
and research resources for purely academic purposes. Nonethe-
less, it was the basis of an outreach programme that achieved a The teachers onboard sent back daily reports, video clips and stories
remarkable degree of success with schoolchildren. to be posted on the website. Further publicity was very effective. The
project sponsored four posters that depicted various aspects of ocean
This success was linked to the projects Classroom@sea out- and earth science. There were competitions, BBC radio programmes,
reach activity, accessible through a link from the EuroStrata- workshops at the Southampton Oceanographic Centre and local press
Form homepage, which encouraged schoolchildren to become reports. Fun and education proved to be completely compatible.
involved in the projects work. While such outreach activities are
not new in themselves, the key to Classroom@seas success was The project partners aimed to continue the scheme beyond the
possibly the use of specially equipped research vessels including lifetime of EuroStrataForm. This has become a reality. The daily
the royal research ship RRS Darwin. Owned by the Natural Envir- cruise blogs and news are still posted on the web together with
onment Research Council (NERC) in the United Kingdom, each an interactive questions forum. Cruises are ongoing and continue
ship carries its own highly trained staff. Selected teachers are to open the window to the exploration of the ocean floor and its
then invited to take part in the environmental cruises that usu- ecosystems for schoolchildren worldwide.
ally set sail twice a year.
Funded under the FP5 programme EESD (Energy, environment and sustainable development).
The cruises study the oceans at various locations around the world. Collaboration sought: further research or development support.
One cruise studied the canyons on the ocean floor off the coast of
Portugal. These are up to 5 km deep and span the same distance. Offer ID: 3689
canopy processes in terrestrial ecosystem models equation at the leaf level. Specifically, more
detailed descriptions of the canopy struc-
The United Kingdoms Met Office led an effort to improve the way in which ture and the physical processes affecting the
modellers extrapolate from processes involving a single leaf to entire canopies diurnal NEP cycle were assessed.
in order to improve the performance of terrestrial ecosystem models (TEMs).
Through this work, the Camels consortium
The global carbon cycle is a complex sym- in land management practice. To achieve hopes to increase the accuracy of the glo-
phony of fluxes of carbon between various this objective, it was necessary to advance bal circulation models (GCMs) with which
sources and sinks in the atmosphere, the state of the art in terrestrial ecosystem the TEMs are coupled. This in turn should
oceans, biosphere and soil. Measuring these modelling. improve confidence in global carbon cycle
fluxes experimentally is possible, but only calculations and, consequently, in studies of
over small areas, so global flux estimations Previous terrestrial ecosystem modelling the possible effects on the climate system.
require numerical approaches. studies identified weaknesses with canopy
parameterisations resulting in over-pre-
(Energy, environment and sustainable development).
The Met Office brought its considerable diction of the net ecosystem productivity
expertise in weather and climate prediction (NEP). The Met Office examined alterna- Collaboration sought: further research or development support.
to Camels, an R & D project designed to tives to the traditional application of the
resolve carbon dioxide savings from changes Penman-Monteith energy combination Offer ID: 3700
climate change and acid oceans 12 different research institutes. Using the
business as usual scenario of the Intergovern-
The NOCES project confirmed the important role that models can play mental Panel on Climate Change, LSCE/CEA
in predicting the magnitude, geographic scope and timing of impacts related and its partners predicted the expected changes
to increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. in ocean pH using 13 different models.
As power plants, motor vehicles, forest late the complex biogeochemical processes They discovered that as atmospheric CO2
fires and other anthropogenic and natural involved in ocean-atmosphere interactions. concentrations continue to escalate, the
sources continue to belch large amounts of dissolution of CO2 in surface waters causes
carbon dioxide (CO2 ) into the atmosphere, it Le Laboratoire des sciences du climat et the pH to rise significantly. Why does this
remains to be seen what effect this may have lenvironnement of the Commissariat matter? It is alarming because todays sur-
on the earths oceans. The purpose of NOCES lnergie atomique (LSCE/CEA) in France
was to use computer-based models to simu- led the NOCES consortium, which involved continued on page 21
CFRes_02b.indd 20 25-02-2008 13:57:27

non-destructive tool further enhancing their development. It is
also necessary for gaining general accept-
for environmental analysis ance of the technology, since many organisa-
tions require scientific proof of its applica-
A non-destructive analytical tool using neutron technology has been tions before accepting new technology and
enVIronMenT
developed for use in environmental monitoring and assessment. The new methods within their sphere of activities.
device enables the rapid detection of metals and other elements.
Funded under the FP5 programme Growth
The NuPulse projects main result is the to study both fast and thermal neutrons as (Competitive and sustainable growth).
pulse neutron detector tool (PNDT), which well as gamma rays. The tool can measure Collaboration sought: information exchange/training.
is capable of detecting fast and thermal neu- soil, rock and water samples both on the
trons, as well as photons of gamma radi- surface and in drill holes. It is also able to Offer ID: 3662
ation, to give a quantitative analysis of soils, detect elements and compounds using a
rocks and water. It may be used for data real-time measurement display. An on-site
logging and as a monitoring tool. Typical display of results,
applications of the NuPulse device include automatic operation
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environmental monitoring and assessment, and data transmission
as well as hydrocarbon and mineral explo- will make the PNDT
ration and processing. Further potential tool a very attractive
applications for the device extend beyond alternative to many
the remit of this project and include stud- individual single-pur-
ies in materials science and the detection of pose devices.
explosives and narcotics.
The work of the project
Typical end-users of the tool are SMEs work- will be written up in
ing in the environmental or mineral/hydro- peer-reviewed publi-
carbon exploration and mining sectors. cations. This will help
These companies either use the device for to increase awareness
their own activities, or offer services based among the scientific
on the use of the tool to other companies, community of the tech-
communities or organisations. A major nology and methods
innovation is that the same tool can be used developed by the project,
Underwater recording of medusa dispersion were digitalised. Values that were taken
into account included the density of jelly-
An efficient method of examining the structure and distribution fish within the sailed distance as well as the
of megaplankton organisms such as jellyfish through the use of an temperature and salinity averages. Groups
underwater camcorder has been developed. of medusas were then assigned a position
on distribution maps.
Jellyplankton outbursts have a negative and the ways in which biotic factors govern
impact on fisheries, aquaculture, coastal survival, growth and reproduction. Population dynamics and the distribution
tourism and industrial development. Fur- were examined, exhibiting the relationships
thermore, due to their aggregated dis- To aid this process, a simple video record- between the dispersion of the medusas and
tribution, it is difficult to explain the ing system was developed to estimate the the characteristics of the water. The system
mechanisms causing such mass develop- amount, dispersion and population com- was improved with more precision for future
ments and to measure the ecological and position of jellyfish in surface waters. In a use and so that various positions of aggrega-
socioeconomic consequences. The Eurogel shallow coastal lagoon in the south-east of tion could be explored.
project has risen to the challenge to do Spain, an underwater camcorder was situ-
just that through a joint experimental and ated in a steel pyramidal structure film- Funded under the FP5 programme EESD
field-based effort involving nine European ing towards the square base. The area was (Energy, environment and sustainable development).
partners. Included in their study were canvassed in a zigzag pattern and three Collaboration sought: further research or development support.
the functional biology of key species, the species of medusas were evaluated. When
mechanisms behind trophic interactions the sampling was finished, the videotapes Offer ID: 3669
continued from page 20 climate change and acid oceans
face waters are saturated with calcium car- erable degradation of their aragonite shells once thought. A complete review of the mod-
bonate (CaCO3 ), one of the basic building was observed. elling work and results has been published in
blocks of coral and other species inhabiting a prominent scientific journal.
the oceans. As the pH rises, CaCO3-based Analysis of the model output by LSCE/CEA
minerals, such as aragonite, will go into a revealed that acidification will be most preva- Funded under the FP5 programme EESD
state of undersaturation. This could lead lent in the Southern Ocean, but will soon
to degradation of the shells of marine spread to the subarctic Pacific Ocean. In con- Collaboration sought: further research or development support.
animals. To illustrate this phenomenon, trast to previous studies, the NOCES research Offer ID: 3666
LCSE/CEA submerged pteropods in artifi- indicates that these effects will be felt within a
cially undersaturated seawater, and consid- few decades rather than the longer timescales see also page 23 (offer 3753)
CFRes_02b.indd 21 25-02-2008 13:57:32

Tram travel crosses borders Switching from a bus to a tram system is a
very efficient way of improving public trans-
Under the auspices of the Vivaldi project, a complex new tram port and developing or revitalising certain
system has been designed in Bremen, Germany, both to cross areas of a city. Figures show that despite
borders and make cost-effective use of neglected rail tracks. delays and controversies, the majority of
enVIronMenT
the citys citizens who will be affected are in

A new cross-border tram system for the tram system is very expensive and requires support of the new tram.
German city of Bremen is under construc- substantial state financing. Comprehensive
tion, with the final opening scheduled for information on all aspects of the system
2009. It is a complicated project because it must be openly available, even if these lead Funded under the FP5 programme Growth
requires much cooperation between differ- to extended debates and delay. (Competitive and sustainable growth).
ent partners and the extension of the tram- Collaboration sought: information exchange/training.
lines across the administrative borders of Planned tram systems always arouse a lot
the city into the territory of Lower Saxony. of controversy, particularly on such issues Offer ID: 3653
as where the lines will be laid. An interest-
Part of the system, tramline 4, opened in ing facet of this project is that the planners
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December 2002 and is proving popular decided to use existing rail
with passengers, attracting far higher num- tracks as part of the new tram
bers of people than were using the previous routes. Using disused or under-
bus service. There are currently delays to used rail tracks for a tram system
the project. This is partly because of long is a very positive and cost-effec-
debates over the proposed route of two lines tive way of reviving a neglected
and the initial rejecting of planning council resource. This is valid as long as
recommendations by the local government. access for passengers is easy and
Increasing the acceptance of the scheme by safe, so stations at convenient
residents and local politicians has been an points along the routes were
important step. Agreement has been encour- planned. Using existing track in
aged by holding round table cost-benefit this way also has the potential to
analyses and discussions. Implementing a be adopted in other cities.
Integrating public transport information customers. They are offered easy access
to reliable public transport information.
The Intermodal Travel Information Centre (ITIC) in Bremen, Overall, it is a prime example of providing
Germany, is providing comprehensive information about public relevant local and regional public trans-
transportation services for old and new customers. port information to the public in a central
location. The knowledge obtained from
In order to optimise environmentally annual subscription, timetable and fare infor- Bremens ITIC in the context of the Vivaldi
friendly means of travel, it is essential to mation all in the same place. Additionally, it project could be an example for implemen-
have access to useful information regarding delivers information about Cambio, the local tation in other cities.
alternatives to private car use. The ITIC has car-sharing organisation. The existing inter-
set forth to do just that. modal Internet information platform has
been upgraded to provide better passenger/
The ITIC, which opened in November 2002 customer information and is available from Funded under the FP5 programme Growth
and is run by the local public transport oper- a self-service terminal as well. (Competitive and sustainable growth).
ator in the centre of Bremen, was originally Collaboration sought: information exchange/training.
used for transport ticket sales. It provides The main target users of the ITIC are those
many services such as sales and distribution, citizens who are not likely public transport Offer ID: 3693
a fresh eye on public transport of the areas covered by the network are on
clean fuel. There was a 4 % reduction in
A new, efficient, environmentally friendly transport system has been energy costs in 2004 using the new fleet,
introduced in Nantes, France, increasing passenger numbers and reversing the and the average age of the networks buses
previous decline in patronage. has been reduced from nine to five years.
A real-time passenger information system
One of the objectives of the Vivaldi project Citizens of Nantes are now the beneficiar- at bus stops and on the Internet was intro-
was to create a new and non-polluting pub- ies of a clean and efficient transport system duced at the same time.
lic transport system to be fully operational with lower fuel emissions. Creating a newer,
in Nantes by the end of 2005. An overhaul of fresher and more environmentally friendly The project was driven by many factors
the citys bus system was timely as passenger public transport system is a good way of including strong political support, finan-
numbers were decreasing, partly due to the encouraging people who do not use public cial support from the EU, a positive attitude
old and run-down buses in operation and transport to begin doing so. The new fleet in from bus company staff and enthusiasm
partly because of competition from Nantes Nantes is now transporting 81 % of its pas- from passengers. The most important impe-
modern tram system. After the project fin- sengers with compressed natural gas (CNG) tus to the project, however, was the neces-
ished, passenger bus numbers had increased fuel and comprises 125 standard CNG buses
by 15.7 %. and 30 articulated CNG buses. Nearly 55 % continued on page 23
CFRes_02b.indd 22 25-02-2008 13:57:38

reproducing night-time warming plots. To prevent damage in case of high
winds, both the night-time temperature and
and drought conditions drought plots were outfitted with wind sen-
sors that withdrew the curtains when wind
Italian ecologists have developed an innovative methodology speeds exceed 10 m/sec.
enVIronMenT
for reproducing night-time warming and drought conditions like
those forecast to affect Europe over the coming decades. The At each of the six test sites, three night-
objective was to understand how local ecosystems will respond. time and three drought plots, each covering
20 m, were created as well as several con-
As greenhouse concentrations continue to set-up was designed for durability with a gal- trol plots. Similar steel frames were installed
rise in the earths atmosphere, the tempera- vanised steel frame covered with aluminium- on the control plots to eliminate additional
ture is expected to rise, not only during the reinforced high-density polyethylene sources of variation. The experimental
day but also at night. Furthermore, rain is (HDPE), which is virtually impervious set-up enabled the Vulcan scientists to
projected to fall less frequently, but more to long-wave radiation. The HDPE was investigate the impact a warmer, drier cli-
intensely, resulting in periods of drought replaced with a transparent polyethylene mate may have upon important European
followed by flash floods. curtain for the drought plots to allow solar ecosystems.
radiation through, but not rain, which was
The question posed by the Vulcan project removed via special rain gutters.
is how Europes shrub ecosystems will cope
with these changes. In order to answer this Due to the length of the experimental cam-
question, it was necessary to reproduce the paign, the extension and retraction of the
expected warming and drought artificially coverings was fully automated. Light sen-
in test plots. sors ensured that the HDPE curtains moved
into place following sunset and withdrew at Collaboration sought: further research or development support.
Ecologists with the Universit degli Studi sunrise, acting as a blanket to raise the sur-
della Tuscia developed the methodology face temperature during the night. Similarly, Offer ID: 3753
applied at the six test sites in Denmark, a rain sensor activated the retraction of the
Spain, Italy, Hungary, the Netherlands and covering so that equivalent soil moisture see also page 20 (offers 3689,
the United Kingdom. The experimental content was maintained with the control 3700 and 3666)
eco-friendly, low-cost prefabrication of buildings specifications. Estimations for the average

weights of the overall participating second-
Using waste raw material as a basis, the Inprowarm project resulted ary materials and specific polymer per unit
in the design and fabrication of inexpensive dwelling components. along with envisaged costs were provided.
The properties of the structure were meas-
The key objective was to produce innovative, ings of separate panels and panel assemblies ured and tested against existing regulations
modular, interlocking composite construc- for a potential prefabricated structure were and applications. These included structural
tion panels that would be easily assembled developed. These included technical speci- norms, weather and fire resistance.
for low-cost housing. The project exploited fications for their design and significant
waste raw materials that were consolidated features to be applied in different types of
within an innovative polymeric matrix. The lightweight panels. The panels designed for
reduced use of expensive polymers in com- the construction of the potential unit dwell-
(Competitive and sustainable growth).
bination with the application of secondary ing also involved architectural studies that
quarry products offers considerable cost included door panel, corner, tee and crosses Collaboration sought: further research or development support.
reduction in building construction. as well as wall and roof assembly.
Offer ID: 3698
On the basis of extensive and detailed stud- Detailed descriptions of different partici-
ies of different materials, complete draw- pating materials included size and humidity see also page 17 (offer 3609)
continued from page 22 a fresh eye on public transport
sity to encourage the use of which led to a hold-up in delivery. Despite

alternative fuels and energy this, Nantes City Council decided in June
sources in every day life. 2005 to continue to buy new CNG buses.
A prototype bus was

designed and assembled
in 2001; the first buses of
the new fleet were deliv-
ered in August 2002 and Collaboration sought: information exchange/training.
were in operation during
September 2002. There Offer ID: 3679
were some ratification
and operational prob- see also pages 40 (crash warning for
lems with the new buses connected cars?) and 41 (offer 3741)
CFRes_02b.indd 23 25-02-2008 13:57:42

IT and TelecoMMUnIcaTIons
The leading edge: plastic fibre slashes network costs
Plans in the 1990s to bring ultra-high-speed telecom lines into every home foundered because the optical
fibre infrastructure was just too expensive. But a new European project using plastic fibre and off-the-shelf
components could make optical networking so cheap and simple that anyone could install it.
What happened to the dream of optical fibre in every home? While to transmit 100 Mbit/s over a distance of 300 m, which is the speed
the core of the telecoms network, the long-distance trunk routes, telecom companies hope to offer their customers 5 to 10 years from
uses optical fibre, the links from the exchange to individual homes now, and 50 times as fast as a typical ADSL broadband connection.
remain almost entirely copper wire. Telecoms companies have been
creative in pushing copper to its limit with ADSL broadband technol- The second achievement, using red light, is to transmit 10 times
ogy and leveraging existing television cable infrastructure (especially faster still 1 Gbit/s over a 30 m fibre. By the end of the project,
France and the Benelux), but only by taking optical fibre right into in June 2008, the partners expect to have extended that to 100 m.
the home can they meet the demands for ever-faster connections.
Then, of course, we will try to focus on longer distances,
The truth is, its too expensive. Ambitious plans to rip out the copper Mr Nocivelli says. We have already demonstrated that plastic fibre
and lay optical fibre were largely abandoned in 2001 when telecoms would be future-proof not only for the next 10 years, but for the
companies realised that they could not afford the mounting costs. next 30 years. With that speed in your home, you could download
Only a few countries, notably Japan, have pushed ahead on any scale. a full DVD in 30 seconds.
The cost was way too high to be sustainable, says Alessandro Remarkably, the POF-ALL members have not had to develop any
Nocivelli, the founder and CEO of Luceat SpA, one of the partners novel technologies. They have built their systems using the latest
in the EU-funded Paving the optical future with affordable light- off-the-shelf components and the ingenuity and skill of the 10
ning-fast links (POF-ALL) project. There was no business model academic and industrial partners.
to support such an investment.
Two products are already coming to the market. Luceat is com-
The object of POF-ALL is to find a technical solution to this rising mercialising an optical Ethernet switch (a router) using plastic
cost. The partners decided to focus on the cabling inside build- fibre technology, and the Fraunhofer Institute is looking for part-
ings, which would typically account for 30 % of the cost of laying ners to market an integrated optical transceiver to work at 1 Gbit/s
an optical fibre from the exchange into the home. This last hun- with plastic fibre.
dred metres or so is known as the edge network.
Home and office networks could be rewired with plastic optical
We realised that we could lower the cost of this edge installa- fibre so simply and cheaply it could be a do-it-yourself job. Its
tion by using a simpler technology, Mr Nocivelli says. If we could future-proof, Mr Nocivelli confirms. You run at 100 Mbit/s today,
employ a technology which is so simple to use that anyone can 1 Gbit/s tomorrow and maybe 10 Gbit/s in the future.
install it, that would relieve telecom companies of 30 % of the cost
of the access network, which means up to several billion euro if A follow-up project, POF-PLUS, is intended to further develop
you consider the European Union as a whole. optoelectronic components for plastic fibre and is awaiting a final
decision on EU funding.
The key to a simpler, cheaper edge network is optical fibre made
of plastic rather than the more usual glass. It has several advan- The benefits for Europe of plastic optical fibre could be immense.
tages. First of all, glass fibres use infrared laser light to transmit the Today, the market for optical network technology is dominated
signal. The light is invisible to the eye, yet can cause permanent by American and Japanese firms, but Mr Nocivelli sees an oppor-
damage or even blindness if someone looks down a live fibre. tunity for European companies to seize the initiative in the same
way as they did for mobile phones. The GSM standard, which was
I have a two-year-old child, Mr Nocivelli says, and I would never developed in Europe, has been adopted almost worldwide. And,
install a glass optical fibre in my own home, even though I have of course, this is the kind of success we are looking forward to.
been working with glass optical fibres for many years. In contrast,
Promoted through the ICT Results service.
plastic fibres use harmless green or red light that is easily visible
to the eye. Plastic fibres can be safely installed in a home without http://cordis.europa.eu/ictresults/index.cfm/section/news/tpl/
article/BrowsingType/Features/ID/89422/highlights/leading
risk to inquisitive children.
see also pages 33, 34 (optical fibre: secure
A second advantage is their robustness. Plastic fibres are much in all the chaos) and 46 (offer 3736)
thicker than glass fibres, a millimetre or more, and can be handled
8
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without special tools or techniques. You dont need to be trained

to handle and install it. You just cut it with scissors, plug it in and
it works. Its as easy as that.
Of course there are drawbacks. Plastic fibres absorb light more than
glass, which limits their useful length to a few hundred metres. They
also have a lower data capacity than glass fibres. But that is fine for
the cable that runs from a conventional glass fibre in the street into
a house, or even for laying a network within a block of flats.
With six months of the project to run, POF-ALL is already produc-

ing results. The partners have built a system that uses green light
CFRes_02b.indd 24 25-02-2008 13:57:46

Problem solving in mobile ad hoc networks iour with respect to network changes. Fea-
turing a hybrid design, it involves a unique
Inspired by nature, the BISON project developed the AntHocNet, an ant-based combination of reactivity and proactivity
algorithm for adaptive routing in mesh and mobile ad hoc networks. when anticipating and responding to sud-
den disruptive events in the most timely
The ever-increasing complexity of network to the increased number of interconnected fashion. Based on adaptive learning mech-
information systems has created new highly users and devices, but also to the new forms anisms such as the Monte Carlo sampling
demanding needs for better deployment of of interactions among them. Under many and an information bootstrapping process,
systems. This complexity is due not only circumstances, minor changes in this it allows continuous adaptation of nodes
dynamic environment require manual routing tables. Aided by a number of met-
8
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intervention for the systems operation. rics including delay, throughput and signal-
Aiming at resolving this complexity explo- to-noise ratio, the AntHocNet offers effi-
sion problem, the BISON project focused cient optimisation of the set-up of multiple
on developing self-organising and self- routing paths.
repairing robust network information
systems. The innovative AntHocNet was tested and
found to display superior performance
Mimicking the behaviour of insect com- under a number of open space and urban/
munities and immune networks, adap- structured scenarios of mobile ad hoc net-
tation, self-organisation and robustness works. Its hybrid and composite nature
can be achieved without programming makes this algorithm suitable for use with
them into the individual artificial various networks and network dynamics, as
agents. Thereby, the global behaviour well as with several different modes or char-
of large agent colonies may be adaptive acteristics within the same heterogeneous
and cooperative with arbitrary initial network. For further information, please
conditions, unforeseen scenarios and visit: http://www.cs.unibo.it/bison
variations in the environment or pres-
ence of deviant agents. Funded under the FP5 programme IST
(User-friendly information society).
One of the developed algorithms, the Collaboration sought: further research or development support.
AntHocNet constitutes an example
of this adaptive and robust behav- Offer ID: 3717
designing modern dynamic networks based model allows the simulator to scale
up to a large number of nodes, with some
PeerSim, a scalable simulation environment, was developed accuracy being lost in comparison with
within the BISON project to deal with the scale and dynamism PeerSims event-driven simulator engine.
that characterise modern distributed information systems.
Interested users will find tutorials and examples,
Peer-to-peer (P2P) networks gained a great As P2P systems can consist of a very large along with detailed application programming
deal of notoriety in the 1990s as a mech- number of nodes, performing experiments interface (API) documentation on the projects
anism allowing users to share copyrighted with the actual system requires significant website: http://www.cs.unibo.it/bison
material, in particular MP3-coded music resources, in addition to being vulnerable to
files. Meanwhile, academic researchers node failures. The cost of network commu-
began to focus on the benefits and possible nication simulations is less than that of large-
application areas of this decentralised and scale experiments because fewer resources Collaboration sought: information exchange/training.
highly fault-tolerant network structure. are necessary. Furthermore, the model can Offer ID: 3680
be less complex than a mathematical one.
Currently, P2P technologies used for file see also pages 26 (offer 3674 and Web 3.0:
sharing are superseding older mechanisms, PeerSim was specifically designed for epi- user-generated networks?), 30, 31 (offers
including the traditional file transfer protocol demic protocols, such as OverStat and SG-1 3677 and 3651) and 35 (offer 3692)
(FTP). P2P systems, such as BitTorrent, make among others, with high scalability and
efficient use of bandwidth for all broadband support for dynamism. The simu-
8
users and have been known to scale to over lator structure is based on com-
ShutterStock, 200
100 000 users for a single file or data set. ponents, making it easy to quickly
prototype a protocol by combining
PeerSim has been developed as an open- different pluggable building blocks.
source simulation environment, which Every block can easily be replaced
can potentially provide assurance for soft- by another component implement-
ware developers when designing such P2P ing the same interface (i.e. the same
systems and testing network applications. functionality).
Simulations do not suffer from the problems
arising when experimenting with the P2P Two different simulation models are
system itself or when adopting an analytical supported by PeerSim, a simplified
approach, requiring mathematical model- cycle-based model and a more trad-
ling of the P2P network. itional event-driven model. The cycle-
CFRes_02b.indd 25 25-02-2008 13:57:54

sophisticated image segmentation natural images. This is largely due to the
fact that coarse measurement for detecting
A faster, more efficient method of image segmentation properties cannot be detected through sim-
with many applications has been designed. ple geometric averaging.
Video can encompass temporal and spatial the experience of video sequences. A top-of- Thus fast multiscale image segmentation
information about scenes. Despite this, the the-line data type that can be searched on the provides a highly sophisticated and non-
information is difficult to find and organise basis of content as well as annotated, hyper- trivial method through the use of computer
within the raw video data. Standard sequential linked and edited was created. algorithms. This can be beneficial for a wide
frame-based representation of video data is variety of application systems including
sufficient for viewing in movie mode, but can- Methods of image segmentation separate robotics, medical imaging, image retrieval
not handle quick access to much of the infor- the image into sections with coherent prop- and surveillance.
mation that is needed in new applications. erties, which helps to distinguish objects
and their parts. After this occurs, recogni- Funded under the FP5 programme IST
In light of this, the VIBES project has devel- tion, compression and information retrieval (User-friendly information society).
oped the means for rapid video search, hyper- are much easier. However, current methods Collaboration sought: licence agreement.
linking, re-animation and view synthesis. of segmentation do not always produce
This can improve the content and enhance good results when tested on many types of Offer ID: 3665
Managing IP network trust vate key is owned by the issuer of the root
certificate and belongs to an NT.
The Pacwoman project aimed to build the tools needed to develop low-cost
and secure wireless personal and access networks. Trust managers are now A set of IP-networked devices can help
able to authenticate newly arrived devices, distribute state information and to distinguish the home NT, one or many
maintain the trusted presence of such devices under various modes of trust. foreign NTs as well as any number of un-
trusted devices. Untrusted devices include
Trust management is gaining in importance for A network of trust (NT) may include any those that are not able to present a certifi-
numerous types of Internet protocol (IP)-inter- group of IP-networked devices identified cate signed either by the owner of the home
connected devices. Networked devices can form according to a certificate signed by an NT or by a trusted owner of a foreign NT.
an Internet grid able to share services which owner. The owner of an NT creates a root
benefits users. Some examples of such devices key pair of a public and private key and a
include sensors, mobile phones, media centres, root certificate, all of which is done offline. Funded under the FP5 programme IST
home equipment, personal digital assistants The owner then signs the certificates of the (User-friendly information society).
and laptops. Ownership and trust between and devices which make up the NT using the Collaboration sought: further research or development support.
within these groups is a critical issue, so much root private key which is stored in a secure
so that networks nowadays need to be based on place. Given this, an IP-networked device Offer ID: 3674
trust instead on connectivity criteria. having a certificate signed by the root pri-
Web 3.0: user-generated networks? longer true. A large number of devices are
mobile and equipped with wireless commu-
European researchers took the concepts of Web 2.0, like user-generated nication capabilities.
content and social networking, into the real world. They hope to create
user-generated physical networks so Internets could be set up by anyone, Many of the fundamental assumptions of
anytime. Its radical and, surprisingly, fairly realistic. Welcome to Web 3.0. the original Internet have been superseded
and many other pillars of the web are simply
The Internet, Web 1.0, is so incredibly power- Now, thanks to the work of the WIP project, ad hoc (even bootstrap) solutions to discrete
ful that even now, almost 20 years later, we we may be on the brink of a new Internet, problems. It all appears rather accidental.
have only begun to explore its potential. a new World Wide Web. One where users
Web 2.0, with its YouTube, Facebook, Flickr can spontaneously create their own net- WIP wants to change all that, reinventing
and blogs galore, is even younger and shows works, in minutes, and with any kind of data the Internet and its underlying methods in
even more potential. device mobile or fixed, handheld what they cheerfully describe as disruptive
8
or deskbound. It means completely technology. It is revolutionary, radical, but

ShutterStock, 200
reinventing the Internet, retooling is it realistic?

its underlying technology, creating
new operating principles and defin- Were not looking to replace the Inter-
ing wholly new communications net with the flick of a switch, Mr Dias de
protocols so that it all works with Amorim warns. What were proposing is
any technology. a robust, flexible, optimised and above all
user-friendly set of technologies and stand-
When the Internet first emerged, ards that will mean any user, anywhere,
it assumed devices would be can identify and network with any nearby
fixed in place and linked by devices. Without any technical expertise
wires, remarks Marcelo Dias whatsoever.
de Amorim, a researcher with
the WIP project. But thats no continued on page 27
CFRes_02b.indd 26 25-02-2008 13:57:57

distributed control systems Based on publicly available open and ven-
dor-independent source software, the DCRF
in industrial automation communication platform is also offered as
open-source software. For more informa-
A publicly available open communication system has been designed within tion about the DCRF communication plat-
the OCEAN project to enable the reuse of control systems software and form, please visit the OCEAN project web-
infrastructure. Offered without licence fees, it can even form the basis for site: http://ocean.itia.cnr.it
the development of small companies controls for automation systems.
Control technologies play a key role in mod- mentation base for the realisation of the DCRF (User-friendly information society).
ern production systems, ensuring high prod- platform. TAO was found to be the most suit-
uctivity levels. Nevertheless, the individual- able CORBA object request broker and RTAI Offer ID: 3675
ity of products is constantly increasing, and the preferred Linux real-time extension.
with state-of-the-art controllers it is almost
8
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impossible to fulfil these demands. To help The common object request broker
overcome current controllers lack of flexi- architecture (CORBA) allows soft-
bility, the OCEAN project sought to develop ware objects to communicate with
a real-time capable communication platform each other, even when running dif-
for distributed control applications. ferent processes on different hard-
ware platforms. On the other hand,
The distributed control system real-time frame- RTAI supports real-time processes
work (DCRF) was designed to enable dynamic running simultaneously in kernel and
integration of numerical control components user space and, just as importantly,
in distributed open platforms. More specific- the use of various standard operating
ally, a flexible and application-specific config- systems functionalities in real-time
uration of control systems was the ultimate applications.
aim of the OCEAN project. For this purpose,
a modular-based philosophy was opted for, One further aim of the DCRF developers
which evolved from the basic concepts of the was to have numerical control compon-
open system architecture for controls within ents from different vendors interoperating
automation systems (OSACA) standard. within the same communication frame-
work. Hardware abstractions were investi-
The main task of the real-time capable com- gated and evaluated so that an exchange
munication platform DCRF is to support the of components will be feasible and easy.
efficient exchange of data between control Moreover, suitable transport mechanisms
components. Therefore, besides a real-time were added, as it is mandatory for real-time
operating system, an appropriate communica- components that their communication
tion middleware was necessary as the imple- channels meet their time constraints.
continued from page 26 Web 3.0: user-generated networks?
An example helps to illustrate the concept. in wired networks, but what happens if the glove to allow users to set up the network,
You live in an apartment building. You find user moves? Their address has changed, not allow the protocols to communicate with
the neighbours wifi connections and invite the identity, Mr Dias de Amorim reveals. any device, and allow the devices to keep up
them to join a new building network with But if separate values are used for identity with requirements. It is plug-and-play net-
a few clicks. Now you can share and com- and routing, then this isnt a problem, even working for grown-up applications.
municate with everyone. if the user is walking through a park. Weve
successfully separated the two functions. Remarkably, WIP is already in testing phase,
You all have Internet connections via an using laboratories especially set up for the
Internet service provider, ranging from 1, That is just one of dozens of challenges the task, with many of the components of the
2 and 5 Mbit/s. You decide to pool your WIP project has responded to during its system. Over the next year, it will final-
money and rent a fibre-optic line that han- research. It is a radical rethink of the current ise some elements and integrate them all
dles voice, data and television for the whole state of the art, but can it replace the Inter- together. Finally, it hopes to seed the tech-
building. Suddenly you all have 10 Mbit/s net? Thats not what were saying, Mr Dias nology in promising communities to kick-
connections. de Amorim says. It does address the basis start its adoption.
of networking, but it can happily plug into
Another scenario. You go to a gig with some the Internet itself ... That said, if everybody, And then we may see the beginnings of
friends, set up an ad hoc network, and you or even the majority, is using WIP to create Web 3.0.
can all communicate via text, voice or image Internets, then WIP is the Internet!
for the rest of the day, all for free.
The project is not quite there yet, but it has http://cordis.europa.eu/ictresults/index.cfm/section/news/tpl/
Its a radical concept that must overcome made enormous progress. The project split article/BrowsingType/Features/ID/89453/highlights/web+3;0
some major design flaws of the current the multitude of technical challenges into
Internet. One simple example: an IP address three grand strands: user applications and see also pages 25 (offers 3717
governs the routing of information and the interface, routing protocols, and physical and 3680), 30, 31 (offers 3677
identity of the recipient. That works fine technology innovations. They fit hand in and 3651) and 35 (offer 3692)
CFRes_02b.indd 27 25-02-2008 13:58:02

raising awareness of IPv6 within netz (G-WiN). This is the national part of
the German research network, which is
the scientific community under the responsibility of Deutsches Forsc-
hungsnetz e.V., and the heart of the Internet
Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) stands ready to revitalise for science in Germany.
the growth and use of networking and the Internet as a platform

for research, education and general information sharing. Within the 6NET project, the Deutsche For-
schungsnetz had another German partner.
The current version of the Internet proto- 16 countries was built to extensively test a The Fraunhofer Institute Fokus worked on
col (IP version 4) has several shortcomings variety of new IPv6 services and applica- providing a technical solution that not only
which complicate, and in some cases present tions, as well as interoperability with legacy enables mobile and session initiation pro-
a barrier to, the further development of the applications. tocol services in IPv6 networks, but also in
Internet. The 32-bits of address space are heterogeneous environments.
limiting, while the development of a new While IPv6 has additional features to IPv4,
IP version (IPv6) promises to provide a such as mobility and security support, these The success of this IPv6 test bed spurred the
feature-rich environment for the future of were not attractive enough to motivate a sig- existing GANT networks to move to dual-
global networking. nificant number of companies to develop stack operation earlier than anticipated.
IPv6 implementations. On the other hand, Moreover, other national research and edu-
The deployment of IPv6 in Europe has academic networks, being keen on new cation networks (NRENs) were encouraged
recently been boosted by the framework technologies and not strictly interested in to offer production IPv6 services.
programmes of the European Commis- immediate profit, provided it to their users
sion. Funding was granted for the 6NET for experimentation.
project that focused on gaining practical, Funded under the FP5 programme IST
operational experience of IPv6 deploy- The Westflische Wilhelms-Universitt in (User-friendly information society).
ment and testing migration strategies from Mnster was assigned the task to prepare for Collaboration sought: further research or development support.
existing IPv4-based networks. A pan- the deployment of IPv6 in the production
European native IPv6 network connecting environment of the Gigabit-Wissenschafts- Offer ID: 3690
Technological advantages of IPv6 for standard public switched telephone net-

work (PSTN) services. However, for VoIP
The new Internet protocol version, in development since the early to offer users an acceptable level of voice
1990s, has now matured to the state where initial deployments quality, the carrier QoS architecture must
are being made and early commercial products are being delivered. ensure that voice packets are given priority
over other kinds of network traffic.
Among the primary benefits Internet proto- The Euro6IX project was the largest
col version 6 (IPv6) brings to Internet users research project funded by the European Urged by this need for high-performance
are scalable services based on peer-to-peer IST programme aiming to support the rapid packet routing, the carrier QoS architecture
signalling and network convergence, com- introduction of IPv6 in Europe. A total of selected was DiffServ with static resource
bined with the ability to restore end-to-end 17 partners from the telecommunications, assignment and no state maintenance
communications. Besides this, IPv6 eases industrial and academic sector combined required by the backbone routers. Although
the deployment of advanced network con- their research efforts to build a native IPv6 the preferential treatment that voice packets
cepts and services such as security, mobility backbone of eight traffic exchanges estab- require was guaranteed by on-demand QoS,
and quality of service (QoS). lished in major European cities. access to this service should furthermore be
authorised and consumption of resources
The Euro6IX backbone tightly controlled by the network.
8
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gradually became a place

where network manage- This functionality could be provided by
ment applications and user network-edge routers, while the network
trials focused on finding core supports bare DiffServ QoS features.
out how new services could To deploy this architecture model, Euro6IX
be deployed to benefit all project partners proposed end-system-based
Internet stakeholders. As admission control (EAC) relying on end-to-
part of the Euro6IX archi- end network resource measurements.
tecture, a user-initiated
end-to-end bandwidth The overall on-demand QoS architecture
service was specified can be implemented stepwise, starting with
with all the protocols and a simple scenario involving only trusted
functionalities of a voice users and, finally, resulting in a commercial
over IP (VoIP) carrier. service-like environment.
Service providers and Funded under the FP5 programme IST

business customers are (User-friendly information society).
specifically interested
Collaboration sought: further research or development
in these value-added support available for consultancy.
services that could be
a realistic replacement Offer ID: 3656
CFRes_02b.indd 28 25-02-2008 13:58:07

developing ontology-based software tors, reasoners and other tools, the appli-
cation programming interface (API) has
Within the next generation of the web, information will no provided the foundation for popular tools.
longer be intended only for human readers, but also for processing These include the Protg, Swoop and
by machines that would enable intelligent information services. Ontotrack editors, in addition to patch-
ing and versioning services, through to
Like the current version of the web, the commonly referred to as ontology reconcili- inference services such as explanation and
emerging semantic web will be distributed ation. The web ontology language (OWL) debugging.
and heterogeneous. Data will therefore have has been originally designed to represent
to be expressed in the framework of ontol- information about categories of objects and The API is primarily targeted at developers
ogies in order to contribute to the integra- how these are interrelated, and importantly, who wish to work with the OWL descrip-
tion of the resources that compose it. How- about the objects themselves. tion logics (DL) language fragment. It pro-
ever, available ontologies are themselves also vides a level of abstraction above the exten-
a source of heterogeneity. This ontology language represents the sible mark-up language (XML) syntax for
meanings of terms in vocabularies and the the resource description framework (RDF)
Semantic interoperability can be based on relationships between those terms in a way that is widely used for exchange.
finding relationships between concepts that is suitable for processing by software.
belonging to different ontologies, which is A common application infrastructure has The API for manipulating OWL ontologies
been proposed by the Won- is available from Source Forge at: http://
8
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derweb project partners to sourceforge.net/projects/owlapi
pave the way for easy access
to, and integration of ontol-
ogy management systems. Funded under the FP5 programme IST
Designed to facilitate the Collaboration sought: further research or development support.
manipulation of OWL
ontologies for use by edi- Offer ID: 3722
The future of the web is semantic a specific domain. Such a library of onto-
logical systems would contribute to making
For successful information exchange among people and machines in computers commit to common ontological
complex environments like the web, conceptual structures defining a variety agreements, which seems more effective
of formal ontologies have been proposed within the Wonderweb project. than enforcing interoperability.

A main issue in the deployment of the new sought, firstly, to clarify the general attitudes
generation of the World Wide Web, the towards ontological analysis. In other words,
semantic web, is its basic infrastructure. To they sought to distinguish motivations and Collaboration sought: further research or development support.
provide for a wide range of intelligent ser- constraints that drive our conceptualisation Offer ID: 3659
vices such as information brokers, search of the world before including crucial dis-
agents and information filters, ontologies tinctions in reference modules for the con- see also page 32 (offer 3654)
are to act as shared vocabularies. Defining struction of new ontologies.
8
the semantics of objects and their interre-
lationships explicitly and formally, they will On the other hand, the ShutterStock, 200
have a pivotal role to play in enabling con- management and organisa-
tent-based access, interoperability and com- tion of data and documents
munication across the web. already available on the web
requires domain-specific
The European project Wonderweb aimed to ontologies. The next step
address a crucial question arising as the com- in this line of research was
munity of users evolves: What kind of ontol- therefore to identify methods
ogies will be needed? Moreover, the need to to reengineer, align and merge
establish precise agreements on the meaning knowledge organisation sys-
of terms becomes crucial as multicultural and tems (KOSes). Containing
multilingual communities start to exchange metadata in vocabularies, tax-
data and services. To this end, the research onomies and directories, KOSes
work on which the Wonderweb project part- support document tagging and
ners focused involved the development of a information retrieval, but they
library of foundational ontologies. are characterised by informality
and heterogeneity.
For ontologies related to each other in a
way that would make rationales and alter- In the context of a concrete
natives underlying different ontological case study, principles that can
choices as explicit as possible, a framework be adopted when reengineering
of engineering methodologies was devel- semi-structured KOSes into for-
oped. Researchers at the Istituto di Sci- mal ontologies were demonstrated
enze e Tecnologie della Cognizione in Italy for information integration in
CFRes_02b.indd 29 25-02-2008 13:58:15

ambient intelligence: snowboarding neck in wireless sensor networks. So it has
developed very small sensor nodes that
to the new frontier consume up to 10 times less power than the
current state-of-the-art systems.
Think how many lives could be saved if emergency services were
alerted the moment a pedestrian is run over. Think how much more We have developed an ultra-low-pow-
fun snowboarding could be if you could emote your feelings electronically ered implementation of the ZigBee system
to ski-buddies. Breakthroughs in capturing and transmitting ambient and achieved our aim of 20 nanojoules per
intelligence could make these scenarios a reality. transmitted bit, which is significantly better
than the energy efficiency of any chip on the
The My Space/Facebook phenomenon has The context captured can be an envir- market today, Mr Hrault says.
shown how we love to share personal infor- onmental one, such as location, but also
mation. But will we take the next step and the subjects emotional context what is E-Sense has also defined an architecture
share our feelings and emotions across the known as the physiological state. which is adaptable to every module and
ether? every scenario, increasing the versatility
We capture physiological parameters, such as and efficiency of communications. We have
Whether it is sensors on our skin, in our temperature, heart rate and skin conductance developed an end-to-end system architec-
clothing or embedded in the environ- levels [measuring sweat gland activity], says ture which we call e-stack, a very generic
ment, research into ambient intelligence is Mr Hrault, who heads the e-Sense project. protocol stack with different subsystems:
advancing in leaps and bounds. We could We analyse the evolution of these signals and a connectivity subsystem, a middleware
soon be using technology in a whole new, the function of emotional input. For instance, subsystem, an application subsystem and a
human-centric way. we show [people] films and we analyse their management subsystem, Mr Hrault explains.
reaction via sensors. We can determine if a
But before we can fully interact in a respon- person is afraid, happy, sad All subsystems are compatible and e-Stack
sive electronic environment, a number of is effectively a bit like Lego. It is a toolbox of
obstacles need to be overcome. For example, The potential for applications is vast: it protocol elements which can easily be con-
the development of miniaturised, unobtru- goes from entertainment to e-health, safety, nected to other elements, in order to have
sive hardware, clever interfaces, data-secure and industrial applications, such as remote the most efficient protocol stack for your
systems, autonomous and flexible net- asset monitoring. The consortium behind specific application, in terms of energy con-
work protocols, and more efficient wireless this, which includes a number of European sumption and bit rate. The defined architec-
infrastructures. universities, research institutes and com- ture also extends to beyond-3G systems and
panies such as Telefnica, IBM, Fujitsu, platforms, specifying an innovative interface
There are already diverse applications using Thales, Nokia Siemens Networks, EADS and middleware solution.
ambient technology on the market, but one and Mitsubishi, has developed 26 scenarios
crucial sticking point is that few of them are and 16 audiovisual showcases demonstrat- The e-Sense project, backed by FP6, con-
fully integrated into wireless communica- ing the use of sensor networks to capture cluded at the end of 2007. But a new project
tion systems. European researchers have ambient intelligence and use it in mobile under FP7, called Sensei, will take research a
been addressing this outstanding issue. communications. step further by integrating the powerful net-
work islands made up of different protocol
The idea is to integrate sensor networks Perhaps the most obvious scenarios focus elements into the web. We believe that, in
into wireless communication systems and on emergency situations, with systems the future, most requests on the Internet will
to capture the users environment, perhaps contributing to improving the response of be to obtain information originating from
using a mobile phone as a gateway, and then emergency services to car crashes and other sensors, Mr Hrault confirms.
transmit this context to a service platform accidents. Other applications also include
to deliver a personalised service and act on leisure and sport. We can measure the feel- The consortium of 20 new partners behind
situations, says Laurent Hrault, project ings you experience while skiing, such as Sensei, which includes Nokia, Ericsson and
coordinator of a research scheme developing acceleration, speed and happiness. This can SAP, also intends to create a new industrial
new ways of capturing ambient intelligence be useful if you want to share your experi- standardisation group, under the guidance of
in post-3G mobile communication systems ences with friends, Mr Hrault says. the European Telecommunications Standards
through wireless sensor networks. Institute, with the aim of creating a European
The EU-funded e-Sense project standard for wireless sensor networks.
8
also carried out studies on the

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acceptance of such technologies All this could mean that in the not-so-distant
and their societal impact. Most future, you could use the Internet to keep in
of these were positive, with the touch with friends and family 24/7, detect-
best results coming from Nordic ing where they are, what they are doing and,
countries on health care, sport crucially, how they feel. So, no need to rack
and entertainment applications. your brains to come up with original Face-
book status updates anymore.
The project has also achieved
a number of technical break-
throughs with wider impact on http://cordis.europa.eu/ictresults/index.cfm/section/news/
tpl/article/BrowsingType/Features/ID/89427/highlights/
the development of ambient
ambient+intelligence
intelligence. E-Sense focused
on developing radio compon- see also pages 25 (offers 3717 and 3680),
ents, which are known to be 26 (offer 3674 and Web 3.0: user-
the power consumption bottle- generated networks?) and 35 (offer 3692)
CFRes_02b.indd 30 25-02-2008 13:58:19

advanced programming of highly distributed and mobile systems.
The ultimate objective was to employ the
for distributed and mobile systems new tools and techniques in order to improve
the trustworthiness and safety of systems for
The Mikado project developed new formal models for the specification solving dependability and security issues.
and programming of large-scale, highly distributed and mobile systems. A set of rigorous models and analysis tech-
niques as well as software infrastructure and
Challenged by the global computing initia- limitations include restricted interactions virtual machines were generated.
tive, the Mikado project focused on exceed- and view of components and objects as well
ing current limitations of common middle- as difficulties in proper and uniform support One of the new programming models, Un
ware and programming technologies. Such of mobility, predictability, security and fault langage pour la mobilit (A language for
tolerance. Another mobility / ULM) enables the user to move
8
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important aspect is from functional programming resulting
system responsive- from mathematical functions to reactive
ness to investigation programming, distribution and mobility.
for verification, val- Embedded in the scheme multi-paradigm
idation and test pur- programming language that supports func-
poses in the most tional programming, it includes a compiler
accurate way. and a virtual machine for its implementa-
tion. For further information, please visit:
Motivated by this, http://mikado.di.fc.ul.pt
the project spe-
cified and devel- Funded under the FP5 programme IST
oped prototypes of (User-friendly information society).
innovative models Collaboration sought: further research or development support.
for specification
and programming Offer ID: 3677
Inspired by distributed and mobile primitives. The implementing mobile cal-

culi (IMC) framework, accessible through
programming concepts the Mikado project site along with all its
other major deliverables, is flexible enough
As the scope and computational power of global information infrastructures to support multiple and even customised
continue to grow, an innovative software framework supporting highly communication protocols.
distributed computation aims to harvest their potential benefits.
Emerging computing paradigms, such as distribution and migration were studied.
global computing and ambient intelligence, They concentrated on models of computa- Collaboration sought: further research or development support.
envision scenarios where a mixture of per- tional domains with programmable mem- Offer ID: 3651
sonal and public mobile devices can move branes and attempted to unify different cal-
across domains and network boundaries. A culi in a core formal model for concurrent see also pages 25 (offers 3717 and
massive infrastructure composed of highly and object-oriented programming. 3680), 26 (offer 3674 and Web 3.0: user-
diverse and interconnected objects would generated networks?) and 35 (offer 3692)
support uniform services with variable guar- Specification and analysis techniques for the
antees for communication and mobility, in new programming model were then pro-
8
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addition to resource usage and security. posed, extending recent work on

type systems for object-oriented
The Mikado project, as part of the future languages and distributed process
emerging technologies initiative, sought to calculi. These ranged from type
address inadequacies of current middleware systems and static analysis tech-
and programming languages to meet the niques for expressing constraints
challenges posed by such an environment. In on concurrency and resources
particular, these tend to provide for a limited access to proof techniques for
range of interactions and have a limited view assuring that mobile codes con-
of components and objects. Importantly, they form to predefined specifications.
are not amenable to rigorous investigations The latter required novel co-induc-
for validation and test purposes. tive techniques to compare the dis-
tributed behaviour of systems and
The development of formal models for new specification logics for express-
both the specification and programming ing partial views of programming
of large-scale, distributed and mobile sys- paradigms.
tems was among the primary aims of the
Mikado project partners. In order to lay the A common software framework to
foundation necessary to overcome current support the implementation of distrib-
limitations in global programming, several uted process calculi could not restrain
models for explicit code and computation itself to a fixed set of communication
CFRes_02b.indd 31 25-02-2008 13:58:27

Integrated data management therapists can supervise client practice via
the Internet with an advanced system, assign
for speech therapy exercises and examine results. Therapists
can concentrate on the primary acquisition
A remote exchange component has been developed to help of correct articulation and hence administer
speech therapists monitor client practice through the Internet. more intense exercises for homework. This
results in an increase in client number with-
The Ortho-logo-paedia (OLP) project has automatic speech recognition, articulation out a decrease in the quality of therapy.
developed an integrated computer-based can be improved, offering an interface to
system which can assist conventional assertive technology and speech synthesis. In terms of marketing aspects, the remote
therapy for people with speech disorders. data exchange component can be provided
Through real-time visual feedback and With the OLP system, therapy can in conjunction with training and support
be organised off-site through the use paid services. The cost depends on user
8
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of the Internet. The type of feedback licences, that is, customer costs are reduced
and the recognition section can be as additional licences are ordered. The main
particularly designed to fit a certain goal is to assist business partnerships and
client group as well as an individual. synergies to reach beyond conventional
Furthermore, databases of disordered sales. The product will also be available to
speech, therapy needs and protocols local IT specialists and consultancies for
have been set up. These aid the appli- software sales and installation.
cation and create an interface which
permits the therapist as well as the Funded under the FP5 programme Life quality
client to alter the customisation. (Quality of life and management of living resources).
Collaboration sought: joint venture agreement.

More specifically, through the
remote exchange component, Offer ID: 3672
8
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evaluating text mining practices
As knowledge mining becomes essential for the smooth operation
of modern organisations, dedicated tools for annotating textual data
are continuously being developed. Targeting domain experts, whose
main task is the manual revision of mark-up, the Parmenides system was
developed as an attractive alternative for annotating textual data.
The Parmenides system was designed to During the lifetime of the Parmenides
support the entire text mining process, from project and in parallel with the development
gathering documents through information of the system itself, an evaluation framework
extraction and semantic annotation to the was developed in conjunction with the users.
application of data mining techniques. Being The ultimate aim of this exercise undertaken
ontology-based, it includes an ontology by the Parmenides project partners was
management system and tools for extracting two-fold. Firstly, they sought to perform a
new concepts and relations, in addition to complete user-centred evaluation of the sys-
providing document- and data-warehousing tem architecture and to assess how well it
facilities. Although the Parmenides system answered the users requirements. And sec-
can support the entire text mining process, ondly, the general framework built up for ogies to be mandatory. Nevertheless, the
it is also possible for users to employ only a the Parmenides system was intended to be performance of dedicated tools for acquir-
subset of the available facilities depending reusable for evaluating similar systems. ing new concepts may be characterised as
on the task they wish to carry out. having less importance than the quality of
In particular, the relative order- the management system.
8
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ing tool (ROTE) was employed

to build a parameterised quality Such an evaluation framework for a large and
model for evaluation. This was complex text mining system resulted in a qual-
designed at the University of ity model containing more than 180 metrics. It
Geneva to help users in speci- was this complexity of the quality model which
fying the relative importance initially led to the development of the ROTE
of different quality character- tool. However, before its overall benefits can
istics and associated metrics. be assessed, it will require further testing on
The tool allows users to order other systems with varying complexity.
any number of quality charac-
teristics by comparing them
in pair-wise fashion. For
example, a user may consider Collaboration sought: further research or development support.
both an ontology manage- Offer ID: 3654
ment system and the facility
to build and maintain ontol- see also page 29 (offers 3722 and 3659)
CFRes_02b.indd 32 25-02-2008 13:58:37

coppers not coping: new chips call on light speed nology that joins the silicon and iridium-
phosphate materials together.
The tiny copper wires that connect different areas of an integrated circuit
may soon limit microchip-processing speeds. So European researchers have The bonding process, now transferred to
developed technologies to produce and combine semiconductor microlasers Tracit, effectively glues the silicon and
with silicon wave guides for novel, power-efficient optical connections. semiconducting indium-phosphate in lay-
ers. It is possible to etch out the microlas-
We have all experienced the effect of Moores and detector along wave guides, like mini- ers and the silicon wave guides and produce
Law: almost from the second you unpack ature optical fibres. At this scale, however, an optical interconnecting layer, Mr Van
a newly purchased computer, it is already the wave guides are made out of silicon Thourhout says. The bonding process and
outdated. The next model with faster rather than glass. the refinement of the microlaser and the
processing power and more advanced fea- accompanying detectors have been major
tures is already in the shop. Lots of research has shown that you can breakthroughs.
etch wave guides for photons into silicon,
Gordon E. Moore, co-founder of Intel, Mr Van Thourhout says. This is great The production cost of the prototype optical
described the phenomenon of microchip because you are using the same materials interconnect layer is still too high for mass
miniaturisation in 1965 when he observed and fabrication technologies as you do to production, although the results from the
that the number of transistors you can make integrated circuits. But there is one demonstrator chip have been extremely
fit into an integrated circuit appeared to significant drawback: it is extremely hard to encouraging. A follow-up project, Wadimos,
double about every two years. get light out of silicon. will continue to drive the Picmos platform
towards commercialisation. In particular it
The microelectronics industry still follows Despite extensive research to exploit many will develop a pilot line that integrates the
this law, but unless new fabrication or of silicons peculiar properties, it is highly fabrication of the optical interconnect layer
microprocessing technologies are quickly unlikely that purely silicon-based lasers will into the regular integrated circuit manu-
developed, this relentless miniaturisation reach an efficiency comparable to that of facturing process.
may peter out in less than a decade. Micro- their semiconductor-based cousins for the
chips based on silicon wafers are nearing foreseeable future. We envisage a layer on an integrated circuit
their theoretical limits as physical properties that sits on top of the classical etched cop-
of near-nanoscale silicon integrated circuits Mr Van Thourhout has coordinated a Euro- per electrical interconnect layer, Mr Van
begin to interfere with their performance. pean consortium that has successfully com- Thourhout says. This optical interconnect
bined the best of both worlds: silicon wave layer would be less sensitive to tempera-
The speed of data transfer within integrated guides and microscale lasers made from a ture, immune from electromagnetic noise,
circuits is one of the major bottlenecks. At semiconductor called indium-phosphate. and have lower power consumption. Mean-
present, to pass information from one part The Picmos project was a partnership while, the bonding system could be adapted
of a chip to another, the data packet is sent between several European research insti- for many other electronics applications, for
as electrons through copper wires, known as tutions, universities and two French com- example to stack integrated circuits and in
copper interconnects. panies: STMicroelectronics and Tracit Tech- microfluidic technologies. The application of
nologies, now owned by Soitec. the Picmos platform could be tremendous for
These wires may be just a few millimetres tomorrows chip technologies and wide-rang-
in length, but for the electrons it is like run- Part of the research involved the fabrication ing in many other associated applications.
ning between underground trains at rush of a miniaturised laser system small enough
hour. The electrons must all squeeze down to generate light for each interconnect. The
narrow tunnels while a crowd backs up at Picmos partners developed a method to etch http://cordis.europa.eu/ictresults/index.cfm/section/news/tpl/
the entrance. indium-phosphate lasers with a diameter article/BrowsingType/Features/ID/89457/highlights/copper
of just 7 m, sufficiently small to integrate
Copper-wire interconnects place serious several thousand onto a 2 cm x 2 cm silicon see also pages 24, 34 (optical fibre: secure
limitations on the performance of sil- chip. This is the first time that such compact in all the chaos) and 46 (offer 3736)
icon integrated circuits, says Dries Van lasers have been produced in a very prac-
Thourhout from Ghent Universitys Pho- tical, cost-efficient way.
8
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tonics Research Group and Belgiums

micro- and nanoelectronics research The tiny lasers
centre IMEC. It is hard to transmit data could also
down these interconnects in a sufficiently have applica-
fast, power-efficient way. It is a problem of tions in mini-
bandwidth, and copper will not be able to ature optical
cope with the processing power of tomor- sensors, such
rows microchips. as strain detec-
tors, or be used
Optical interconnects use light instead of to build incred-
electrons to represent information. They ibly cheap, but
are a highly appealing alternative to copper ver y powerful
interconnects, with the potential to be far optical biosen-
more efficient, transmitting more data but sors. But the big-
using the same or even less power. gest breakthrough
in the project was
Instead of travelling along copper wires, the development
photons travel the distance between source of a bonding tech-
CFRes_02b.indd 33 25-02-2008 13:58:47

Microsensors integrated on a chip The resonating cantilevers are actuated by
means of electromagnetic forces generated
The integration of cantilever arrays in a single chip along with by a permanent magnet and an alternating
signal processing electronic circuits, achieved by the Biofinger current flowing in a metal loop. The bind-
project, may open the way for miniaturised sensing systems. ing of the analytes changes the mechanical
properties of the cantilevers, which can be

Recent advances in silicon micromachining Micromachined cantilevers can recognise detected by piezoresistors, or stress-sensi-
technology have boosted the discovery of proteins with exquisite sensitivity, as well as tive transistors, arranged in a Wheatstone
new applications for micro- and nanotools. detect small amounts of materials, especially bridge configuration. The cantilevers act as
Cantilever beams with length and thickness pathogenic bacteria. Directed micro- and frequency-determining elements in a feed-
in the tens of micrometres range have been nano-electromechanical systems have also back oscillation circuit, with a counter.
demonstrated to be a most promising class been used as immunospecific and multi-
of biosensor. Due to their intrinsic flexibility, functional biological detectors. The ultimate Microfabrication techniques and, in par-
combined with the availability of advanced aim of the Biofinger project was to integrate ticular, complementary metal-oxide semi-
techniques designed to monitor bend- cantilever arrays in one chip with signal conductor (CMOS) technology was used to
ing, they have become versatile tools for processing electronic circuits, and thereby devise the small-size sensor system. Post-
molecular and biomolecular recognition. enhance the devices performance. processing and packaging of the CMOS chip
was necessary to prepare the biosensor for the
8
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More specifically, an harsh culture environments in which it was
array-based approach designed to operate. Epoxy was first applied
was adopted by research- to stabilise the chip bonds on the chip and
ers at the Swiss Federal polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) was used to
Institute of Technology isolate them from the liquid environment.
to allow parallel screen-
ing of different analytes The sensitivity of the sensor system was
and increase the overall evaluated by exposing the coated cantilevers
analysis speed. The resin sample fluids with varying concentrations
onant cantilever system of prostate-specific antigen where less than
comprises four equally- 10 ng/ml was detectable.
spaced cantilevers, into
which the read-out Funded under the FP5 programme IST
scheme has been inte- (User-friendly information society).
grated to allow their Collaboration sought: further research or development support.
fully autonomous
operation. Offer ID: 3676
optical fibre: secure in all the chaos generate discernible patterns in the chaos. A
couple of decades ago, it was discovered that
Secure messages hidden in chaotic waveforms, transmitted at up to 10 Gbit/s, if, under the right conditions, two chaotic
is the vision behind a group of dedicated European researchers. Now they are systems start to affect each other, they will
prototyping the equipment that could make the vision a reality. synchronise their chaotic motions.
Hiding a message within a chaotic transmis- applied to secure chaos-encoded optical Laboratory experiments soon confirmed
sion offers a way of securing information communications systems (Picasso), also that lasers transmitting light in patterns that
exchange provided the message can be dis- funded by the European Commission, are were chaotic in time and space would syn-
tinguished from the chaos by the receiver. designing and testing two integrated and chronise when they received light from one
stable chaotic sources. In effect, these are another through space or optical fibre.
Two years ago, members of the European the first prototypes for a kit that will allow
research project Optical chaos communica- chaotic transmissions to be used as a stand- The next step was to fold a message into
tions using laser-diodes transmitters (Occult) ard security measure by organisations, such the chaotic waveform. The receiver is able
showed that messages could be sent at gigabit as banks and governments. They are also to discern the message by subtracting the
per second rates over 100 km of the stand- researching techniques that will enable cha- (synchronised) chaotic waveform he is
ard fibre-optic network of the city of Athens, otic transmissions to be made and received generating from the chaotic waveform, plus
using a chaotic mix of light frequencies with at tens of gigabits per second. message, that he is receiving.
massive variation in amplitudes.
The key to sending signals using chaotic The Occult team took the principles of syn-
And the message was received with low bit light sources is synchronisation. Chaotic chronised chaotic transmissions out into
error rates. Yet, anyone tapping into the systems are unpredictable because they are the real world. While the signal transmitted
fibre-optic cable, attempting to intercept affected by many often millions of tiny over the Athens network was less than one
the message without highly specialised events. The potential effect on the weather second long, it proved that the technique
knowledge and equipment, would have been of the beat of a butterflys wing is the most worked.
unable to distinguish it from the chaotic famous example of this.
light noise that surrounded it. Picassos first challenge was to build inte-
But the fact that they are not predictable grated devices incorporating laser diodes
Now researchers in a follow-on project does not mean that they are random. In
called Photonic integrated components fact, the little events are interdependent and continued on page 35
CFRes_02b.indd 34 25-02-2008 13:58:52

Wireless systems at millimetre Project partner Motorolas contribution to
the meetings of the study group formed to
wave frequencies develop a millimetre-wave-based alternative
physical layer for the existing WPAN stand-
With low-cost integration solutions, the potential of millimetre wavelength ard IEEE802.15.3-2003 has been significant.
technology to provide the next generation of multi-gigabit wireless The millimetre-wave WPAN will allow very
communications has been explored within the Broadway project. high data rates for applications such as high-
speed Internet access, real-time streaming
User throughputs provided by existing emerging applications in highly dense areas and wireless data bus for cable replacement.
2.4 GHz wireless local area network can be accommodated and data exchange
(WLAN) and new 5 GHz orthogonal fre- rates exceeding 100 Mbps can be achieved.
quency-division multiplexing (OFDM) solu-
tions are already foreseen as insufficient for While the high path loss at the 60 GHz ini- Collaboration sought: further research or development support.
dense urban deployment. Their extension tially seemed to be a disadvantage, it how-
by means of new modes in the unlicensed ever confined Hiperspot operation in an Offer ID: 3692
5965 GHz band has been proposed to guar- indoor environment and within the limits of
antee nomadic terminal mobility in combin- a room. In addition, higher frequency reuse see also pages 25 (offers 3717 and
ation with enhanced capacity and privacy. could also be achieved, allowing a very high 3680), 26 (offer 3674 and Web 3.0:
throughput network particularly suited for user-generated networks?),
The hybrid dual frequency WLAN designed peer-to-peer communications. Importantly, 30 and 31 (offers 3677 and 3651)
within the Broadway project provides for the 60 GHz regulation allows much higher
8
smooth ad hoc extension of 5 GHz OFDM transmit power compared to other existing
ShutterStock, 200
Hiperlan/2 technology at the 60 GHz radio wireless local area networks (WLANs) and
frequency band. Offloading infrastructure- wireless personal area networks (WPANs).
based WLANs from data traffic and interfer-
ences, mobile terminals operating at 60 GHz The Broadway project partner therefore
can form a separate ad hoc network. had a key role to play in the extension of the
IEEE802.15 standard, which addresses con-
Its scalable system architecture was based on sumer needs for low-cost and high data rate
Hiperlan/2 technology to ensure easy recon- ad hoc wireless connections. Some of these
figurability for backward compatibility. Fur- applications include wireless keyboards and
thermore, Hiperspot was equipped with a printers, personal video and digital cameras,
novel modified multi-carrier transmission digital audio players and headphone, home
scheme enhancing the robustness of transmis- theatre systems and stereo system compon-
sions at 60 GHz. With Hiperspot, demanding ents, among others.
continued from page 34 optical bre: secure in all the chaos
that were capable of acting as stable cha- project coordinator on the Occult project During a second phase of Picasso, the
otic sources. They have come up with two and a member of the Picasso team. research team will investigate increasing the
devices. The first is a single chip about rate of transmission using wavelength div-
1 cm in length which is being prototyped Consistency is a key goal for the mech- ision multiplexing, where a number of sig-
in a Berlin laboratory. The second is a anical parts. Sending longer signals is nals are transmitted together at clearly separ-
hybrid device about 15 cm long consisting dependent on maintaining synchronisation ated wavelengths. You have to define the
of a laser and a small piece of fibre, using between the two chaotic light sources for width of the channels very well, Mr Mirasso
an oil coating to maintain temperature and long periods, enabling data transmission comments. But in many ways, it is not very
feedback strength. We expect both to work at 10 Gbit/s. different from normal wavelength division
well quite soon, says Claudio Mirasso, multiplexing. Perhaps 10 or more channels
One of the main prob- would be possible.
8
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lems could be tem-

perature, Mr Mirasso The security offered by chaotic waveforms
says. Changes in does not match the complete security of
temperature lead to quantum cryptography. But the rate of trans-
deviations in wave- mission is far higher a security protec-
length and you can tion in itself. And attempts to break into the
lose synchronisa- optical fibre and interpret the signal would
tion easily. We are be extremely difficult if not impossible at
working on mech- the moment.
anisms that could
offer better sta-
bilisation, but at
this stage we dont
know how much http://cordis.europa.eu/ictresults/index.cfm/section/news/tpl/
our new devices article/BrowsingType/Features/ID/89434/highlights/optical+fibre
will drift with
temperature. see also pages 24, 33 and 46 (offer 3736)
CFRes_02b.indd 35 25-02-2008 13:59:01

IndUsTrIal TechnologIes
optimising polymer processing
Motivated by practical problems from industrial environments, the 3PI project used experimental and computational
tools to model the thermo-mechanics of polymeric materials during their formation, processing and final design.
Polymers are a very important group of materials today. One To bridge the gap between sophisticated rheological models and
probably cannot imagine a modern society without them, which reliable, predictive modelling of polymer processing, numerical
is quite remarkable considering that they were first introduced a tools were developed at the cole des mines de Paris. The mech-
few decades ago. Nevertheless, at the high rates polymers are pro- anisms of different constitutive instabilities of the polymeric flu-
cessed, irregularities and defects appear, limiting the maximum ids, occurring during the extrusion of polymeric melts, were pro-
production rates of their commercial applications. gressively translated into advanced numerical models.
The main objective of the research project 3PI was to provide the Dynamic modelling was quite successful in describing the onset
essential knowledge and models for the prediction and under- of flow instabilities during the melt spinning process as well as of
standing of the final properties of polymeric products. These spurt in pressure-driven flows. To take the study of instabilities in
properties are determined by intrinsic (molecular) parameters polymer flows one step further, general numerical tools for com-
and, to a great extent, by the processing conditions. pressible flow simulations have been developed.
8
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More specifically, the finite element code includes compressibil-
ity contributions together with a non-Newtonian or viscoelastic
constitutive response. Based on the finite element method library
MEF++, it has been configured to match time-dependent experi-
mental data from a multipass rheometer.
Both pressure and birefringence evolution were followed for an

exit/entry flow within a slit, which was assumed to be a 2D flow.
From the results, it was possible to establish the relative import-
ance of compressibility and viscoelastic contributions on the
stress growth and stress relaxation components of the flow.
These failure mechanisms will be progressively translated into

advanced numerical models for use in the optimisation of die
materials and geometries, as well as processing conditions.
Funded under the FP5 programme Growth (Competitive and sustainable growth).
Offer ID: 3688
structural design of polymeric materials eration. Furthermore, quantum chemical

calculations combined with state-of-the-art
Polymeric materials are increasingly being used in real-world applications in atomistic modelling methods offered unique
areas where the primary material choice in the past would have been exclusively insights into the complexation behaviour of
metal-based. An integrated design tool has been developed within the PMILS polyamides. The diffusion of small mol-
project to further improve their manufacturing routes to suit specific end-use needs. ecules dissolved in polymeric matrices of
varying molecular architecture was ana-
Because of the tremendous diversity of their relevant needs for medical devices, elec- lysed using group contribution techniques
physical properties, polymeric materials in the tronics packaging, telecommunication and in unprecedented detail.
form of fibres, elastomers, adhesives and coat- power distribution lines.
ings find applications from the most common Modelling multiscale morphologies in
to exotic products. Inevitably, the final prop- Under the coordination of the Technical polymeric materials starting from their
erties of these materials depend not only on the University of Madrid, PMILS project part- molecular constitution descriptions is an
chemical constitution of the polymer, but also ners combined their expertise in modelling exciting recent development in compu-
on its physical structure or conformation. tools and experimental methods to develop tational analysis of polymer processing.
a holistic approach to polymeric materials Complementing past efforts based on more
Computer-aided numerical modelling has modelling. In the course of the project, the conventional simulation techniques, it could
become a valuable tool for understanding applicability of the integrated software code prove to be a valuable tool in the hands of
how the macroscopic properties of these developed to the level of predicting macro- polymeric materials producers seeking to
materials are related to their molecular scopic properties for a wide range of poly- improve the final product characteristics.
structure. The ultimate aim of the PMILS meric materials was demonstrated.
project was to offer a thorough understand-
ing of mechanisms responsible for the mac- Quantified data on the polymers elastic
roscopic behaviour of polymeric materials behaviour and in particular the mechanical Collaboration sought: further research or development support.
by means of advanced modelling tools. It properties of anisotropic polymers were esti- Offer ID: 3652
would then become possible to tailor their mated by molecular dynamics and Monte
molecular architecture to suit industrially Carlo simulations for their structure gen- see also page 46 (offer 3736)
CFRes_02b.indd 36 25-02-2008 13:59:09

advanced methods for improving technique offers information on the stress
field, both in stationary or time-depend-
polymer properties ent flows allowing characterisation of spurt
conditions and volume distortions. This
The 3PI project resulted in a set of experimental techniques robust and efficient tool also enables the
for characterisation of the flow conditions before and during assessment of the parameters of constitu-
the development of polymer processing instabilities. tive equations or the validity of numerical
simulations.
Polymer processing instabilities have always trial-and-error method with modification of
been evident, even in early developed molecular weight distribution or die geom- The LDV supports measurements of the
materials. However, they were not easily etry has been considered as an extremely local velocity in the flow field for the identi-
related to the relevant industrial conditions. time-consuming technique. Unlike this, the fication of the boundary conditions. It also
Further material advancements and the developed software codes provide guidelines allows the detection of vortices and calcu-
ever-increasing modernisation of extrusion to either polymer producers/converters or lation of their size in abrupt contraction
lines have brought higher flow rates in their machinery equipment industry for fur- geometries. Developed by the Cambridge
production. At the same time, instabilities ther modifications. The modifications may project team, the MPR enables the conduc-
became so complicated that nowadays they involve the polymer, the die geometry or the tion of successive experiments for character-
are considered as the major limitation factor die material, with the ultimate aim of over- isation of flow conditions under controlled
for further use of polymers. Flow instabil- coming or postponing these instabilities. pressure with a limited amount of material.
ities, which are commonly called melt frac- For further information, please visit the
ture, sharkskin or draw resonance, appear Based on the use of transparent tools, new project site: http://3pi.cemef.org
during processing. experimental techniques for characterisa-
tion of the flow conditions were developed Funded under the FP5 programme Growth
To address this, the 3PI project aimed at by several partners. These innovative tools (Competitive and sustainable growth).
developing a more rational approach for include flow-induced birefringence (FIB), Collaboration sought: information exchange/training.
handling flow instabilities than conven- laser Doppler velocimetry (LDV) and use
tional methods in current use. As such, a of a multi-pass rheometer (MPR). The FIB Offer ID: 3709
novel insights into polymer ber, shear and elongational properties of

polymer blends were found to be improved
processing instabilities while, as a filler, carbon black altered the rub-
bers modulus and tensile strength.
A coherent understanding of the origins of viscoelastic
flow instabilities in terms of polymer composition and processing With a new understanding of the instabil-
parameters has been achieved within the 3PI project. ity phenomena in polymer compounds,
researchers at the Pirelli Tyre laboratories in
Natural or synthetic rubbers, such as the with the addition of carbon black appeared Italy intend to engage in targeted research
widely used styrene-butadiene copoly- to provide the optimal solution for postpon- and development of new compounds.
mers, are rarely applied in their pure form. ing the development of flow instabilities.
Because of their poor strength and wear
resistance, they are too weak to fulfil the All rubber compounds have shortcom-
practical requirements of the tyre manu- ings. Often, one polymers properties would Collaboration sought: information exchange/training.
facturing industry. Rubber articles, includ- fulfil the physical requirements of the end Offer ID: 3668
ing tyres, derive many of their mechanical products intended use, whereas a different
properties from the admixture of reinforc- polymer would satisfy some other require- see also page 46 (offer 3736)
ing fillers, processing aids along with a wide ment. In an effort to obtain the right com-
range of curatives. promise and optimise the end products
physical prop-
By improving the polymer compounds erties, blends of
8
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processability while postponing the develop- polymers are the

ment of flow instabilities, production costs rule rather than the
of rubber articles can be reduced and the exception today in
final product quality enhanced. On account manufactured rub-
of the increasingly competitive market, the ber compounds.
European project 3PI adopted a rational
approach to elucidate the mechanisms of Carbon black is
the many different instability phenomena essentially elemental
and therefore remedy resulting production carbon in the form
problems. of extremely fine par-
ticles with partially
In the beginning, a consistent series of com- amorphous molecular
mercial processing promoters were iden- st r uc ture, among
tified which reduced compound viscosity microcrystalline arrays
and thus improved mixing and extrusion of condensed aromatic
behaviour of polymeric compounds. How- rings. When it is com-
ever, the use of two or more polymers along pounded into the rub-
CFRes_02b.indd 37 25-02-2008 13:59:13

More reliable lead-free electronics joints. The method provides for assessment
of the reliability effects of various solder
The EFSOT project resulted in a new reliability testing method for lead-free solder and finish combinations as well as different
joints and a model for the reliable assembly of printed wire boards (PWBs). solder joint gap geometries. Unlike the con-
ventional bulk tests, the new testing allows
According to the directive on the restric- plications for industry in terms of toxicity, reliability assessments of fine pitch solder
tion of the use of particular hazardous sub- recyclability and used resources. joints taking into account the ever-increas-
stances in electrical and electronic equip- ing demands for miniaturisation.
ment (RoHS), lead should not exceed certain Aiming for an easy transition to lead-free
limits. As basic soldering technologies, the EFSOT project In addition to this method, a model for the
8
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electronic prod- focused on promoting reliability, efficiency reliable assembly of complex and miniatur-
ucts and com- and sustainability of lead-free soldering. ised PWBs was also built and tested. Model
ponents need From solder production and PWB manu- outcomes coupled with experimental results
to comply with facturing to reuse and recycling of electron- provided a detailed understanding of new
these require- ics devices, integrated lead-free solutions complicated phenomena in key processes.
ments, the use were developed. These solutions may enable For more information on the project, please
of lead needs industries to select the most appropriate visit: http://www.efsot-europe.info
to be avoided materials and processes that meet technical
in solders requirements, minimise life cycle impacts
and finishes. and lead to savings of resources. Funded under the FP5 programme Growth
Banning of (Competitive and sustainable growth).
lead also has One of the key project results involved Collaboration sought: information exchange/ training.
direct envir- a novel reliability testing methodology
onmental im- designed particularly for lead-free solder Offer ID: 3732
lifespan and ageing of industrial plant components materials in the plant components onsite
and can offer information about grain
A database was created to be particularly adaptable to the parameters coarsening and texture changes. The novel
measured by two-dimensional x-ray diffraction (2D-XRD). It can evaluate aspect of Xpection is that it can assess the
the residual lifetime as well as simulate ageing processes of high-temperature ageing state and remnant lifetime prior to
plant components in the fossil power generation and chemical industries. the appearance of cracks. Some potential
end-users include fossil electric power gen-
The Xpection project has created a proto- It was necessary to measure both the ageing eration and petrochemical industries as well
type that integrates the measuring and state of a material and the remnant lifetime of as aircraft manufacturing and maintenance
monitoring of the residual lifetime of high- the component. Therefore a correlation of the and the pulp and paper industry.
temperature plant components. This real 2D-XRD patterns with the mechanical prop-
structure analysis with onsite x-ray diffrac- erties of the materials was needed. In light of
tion has been merged with an inspection this, a database was designed and the Xpection- Funded under the FP5 programme Growth
and maintenance infrastructure. It is an Tool was then applied to the data collected. (Competitive and sustainable growth).
interdisciplinary approach which spanned
various fields of research for a novel ageing The database has the potential for lifetime
characterisation method. assessment by real structure analysis of Offer ID: 3686
friction stir welding gains industrys acceptance ogy in production may enable industries
to reduce the time-to-market and manu-
Within the context of the Diplomat project, a joint venture facturing costs. Additionally, offering FSW
collaboration scheme with SMEs set the framework for services could significantly increase poten-
a wide promotion of friction stir welding (FSW) technology. tial applications particularly for European
industries. On the basis of a reliable FSW
FSW is a solid-state joining process used the Diplomat project focused on developing system, the Diplomat consortium set the
in numerous applications where the metal a flexible and low-cost interactive process framework for a joint venture for provid-
characteristics need to be kept intact as technology database and suitable design ing services for both internal and exter-
much as possible. It is a fast, clean and guidelines. nal clients. Potential clientele may include
highly reproducible technology particularly train, civil construction or any other indus-
suitable for joining of materials with low The database provides the user with unique trial activities involving light alloys in their
melting points. In addition, it involves less capabilities of easy and rapid identification products.
welding time and consumable costs than of the most suitable FSW tool design and
other techniques, such as fusion welding. process parameters for a given application.
Moreover, it does not require any special The design guidelines can enable industries
skills for its operation, and its adoption pro- to implement the FSW process in the most
motes safety in the working environment. appropriate way in order to generate high- Funded under the FP5 programme Growth
quality welded products. (Competitive and sustainable growth).
Despite its technical, economic and social Collaboration sought: financial support.
advantages, it has not yet gained the wide The adoption of the efficient, high-quality,
acceptance of industry. Motivated by this, environmentally friendly FSW technol- Offer ID: 3639
CFRes_02b.indd 38 25-02-2008 13:59:17

lead-free solder solutions IMEC has moved to copyright its Imecat
research results, which will contribute to
for electronic packages de-leading the electronics industry.

Solder damage fatigue is a common cause of failure in consumer electronic goods,
and conventional lead versions are environmentally unfriendly. This led IMEC,
a top-notch research centre in Belgium, to search for lead-free solder solutions Collaboration sought: further research or development support,
information exchange/training available for consultancy.
that can withstand the inherent thermo-mechanical stresses and strains.
Offer ID: 3670
Lead is a toxic heavy metal. It has recently Various electronic package types were eval-
been removed from gasoline, paints and uated, including under-filled flip chips,
other materials in order to reduce the risk of polymer stud grid arrays (PSGAs), ball
lead poisoning. The Imecat project aimed to grid arrays (BGAs) and chip scale pack-
remove lead from another common applica- ages (CSPs), and compared with a tin-lead
tion solders. (SnPb) benchmark.
Project partner IMEC began by reviewing all IMEC discovered that increasing the silver
previous research into lead-free alternative content raises the temperature at which the
alloys. Several promising compounds were solder becomes brittle, but it may not be
identified and their material properties (e.g. appropriate for low-temperature applica-
brittleness) were evaluated in the laboratory tions. It also identified the conditions under
8
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setting. Finally, IMEC turned to finite element which the different package types may
models (FEMs) to simulate normal wear and develop cracks or other problems that can
tear in order to derive expected lifetimes. lead to solder failure.
evaluating the lifespan tionTool which uses selected data. Its main
potential lies in its complete assessment of
of industrial plant components the ageing state with regard to the expected
residual lifetime. Additionally, it provides
An algorithm for assessing the state of damage and the remaining quality control in production and inspection
lifetime of a material from two-dimensional x-ray diffraction (2D-XRD) in other fields outside the project. The most
patterns has been compiled in a detailed final report. likely end-users consist of those involved in
fossil electric power generation and in the
The Xpection project developed a prototype An interdisciplinary approach spanning petrochemical industry.
integrating a measuring and monitoring sys- several research fields was applied. The
tem for residual lifetime assessment of high- work resulted in hardware and software
temperature plant components in fossil power for data acquisition and residual life time
generation and the chemical industry. The assessment in addition to an ageing process Funded under the FP5 programme Growth
project created an advanced inspection meth- simulation. (Competitive and sustainable growth).
odology employing real structure analysis by Collaboration sought: information exchange/training.
onsite x-ray diffraction and merged it with the An algorithm known as the counterclock-
inspection and maintenance infrastructure. wise loop was integrated into the Xpec- Offer ID: 3664
Managing all costs effectively in mining and benefit of numerous alternative scen-
arios. Aided by the life cycle costs facility,
The Licymin project followed a new approach to limit the full users may conduct economic analysis of
life-cycle impacts of mining and developed a mining financial various solutions. Thereby, costs are pres-
database framework for more effective cost management. ented in monetary terms and benefits are
shown quantitatively as well as in monetary
Aiming to minimise the full life-cycle effects distinguish between those that are prelim- terms. For instance, a monetary valuation
of mining, the Lycimin project adopted an inary, direct, indirect, by-product credit, study is the result of reduction of charges
integrated approach taking into considera- non-operational and environmental. Direct and damages after environmental invest-
tion all aspects of industrial mining and costs regarding excavation and beneficiation ment. This analysis is part of an environ-
mineral processing systems. From explor- influence the environmental costs which mental management tool that may signifi-
ation and development of a mineral deposit include costs of environmental protection, cantly contribute to the minimisation of
to mining, ore processing and concentrate waste disposal as well as closure, reclam- potential environmental damage and cost
production, the new approach also takes ation, monitoring and redevelopment. The reduction in mining.
into account other activities. These include direct cost of every process as defined in
waste disposal and remediation as well as the developed life cycle assessment system
environmental monitoring, decommission- was mapped to the sum of costs for each
ing and long-term control and monitoring of operational unit exploited in each separate Funded under the FP5 programme Growth
the impacts of the mining-related activities. process. (Competitive and sustainable growth).
Collaboration sought: further research or development support.

All these activities are interconnected with The new system offers the users unique
cost flows. The costs in mining activities opportunities to explore the financial cost Offer ID: 3631
CFRes_02b.indd 39 25-02-2008 13:59:20

crash warning for connected cars? installed, Mr Zarzosa explains, and many
owners are self-installing a GPS system, so
European researchers have demonstrated in the lab a collision for these cars Reposit takes advantage of the
warning system for cars that could alert the driver several seconds installed base.
in advance of an imminent impact. The device could save thousands
of lives and usher in the first steps towards the connected car. V2V is an emerging standard for commu-
nication between vehicles, and so it will
It knows its location, can talk to other above 50 km/h, reveals Jose Ignacio Herrero become more common as time goes by. The
cars and can predict the future. Are we Zarzosa, coordinator of the Reposit project. Rosetta stone of the system, the programme
entering the era of truly automated cars? that ties all the devices together, is just soft-
The collision warning system (CWS) High-performance GPS systems, that can ware and so relatively cheap.
is the brainchild of the Relative posi- locate a car within a metre or so, perform far
tion for collision avoidance systems better than low-performance GPS systems, That is very important. Keeping cost down
(Reposit) project, which recently fired up a but even with poor GPS technology, Reposit is essential for any new car technology. The
fully working prototype of their system. has managed to get warning times to 1.5 sec- economics of the motor industry are unfor-
onds in a simulator, not too far from the use- giving. New car devices must be cheap if
The prototype can find its position using ful minimum of 2 seconds. Zarzosa believes they are to be commercialised, Mr Zarzosa
the global positioning system (GPS), and the system can do even better, with further notes.
find the position, speed and trajectory of work using vehicles available sensors.
neighbouring and oncoming traffic using The Reposit team discovered that the rules
an emerging car communication protocol But the system does work, at least in a for automobile innovation are unforgiv-
called Vehicle2Vehicle (V2V). simulator, and that is a concrete result. The ing, too. Right now, there is no standard for
team has also perfected a simulator that integrating new functions into an existing
It can use that information to calculate the other projects can use to model car colli- car system. Every manufacturer uses dif-
relative position of other cars, and then sions, another useful output. But will it be ferent system integration methods. This
extrapolate where they will be in a few a success? significantly pushes up the cost of third-
seconds time. If the data predicts a collision, party technologies like Reposit, Mr Zarzosa
it warns the driver. It is possible, in time. Crucially, the system warns. Although the European Commission
uses technologies such as GPS and V2V, reports that it is working hard on this.
So far, weve got predictions about 1 to 3 which are already becoming common or
seconds ahead of a collision but anything are emerging as a feature of modern cars. So far, the car industry finds Reposits work
from 2 seconds up gives drivers time to react. More and more cars come with GPS already interesting, but remains unconvinced of the
It works better at medium-to-high speeds, commercial application. The car industry is
8
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... very price sensitive, Mr Zarzosa notes.
Even so, the popularity of GPS and the

emergence of V2V as a standard mean that
the system will become more attractive
over time. Before long, drivers might take
the first, tentative steps into the era of con-
nected cars.
http://cordis.europa.eu/ictresults/index.cfm/section/news/tpl/article/
BrowsingType/Features/ID/89414/highlights/crash+warning
see also page 22 (offers 3653,

3693 and 3679)
Ultrasound-treated materials These cements display unique features,

such as the release of protective fluoride
for dental application ions to the adjacent tooth structure that
inhibits subsequent tooth decay. Yet, there
The Ultraset project developed new advanced materials that can be polished and are still some inherent problems including
shaped with the aid of ultrasound immediately after placement in dentistry. early hydrolytic stability and poor fracture
toughness. Aiming to overcome these, the
Mercury-based amalgams used for tooth In answer to these needs, glass iono- Ultraset project developed innovative glasses
filling are considered to be potentially mer cements (GICs) constitute a very for incorporation in the cements that could
toxic and environmentally unfriendly due good option. These materials are formed be further optimised under ultrasound
to mercurys volatilisation after crema- through reaction of aqueous poly-acrylic application.
tion. Alternative materials should display acid with an acid-degradable glass. This
reduced wear, improved handling char- results in a release of metal cations that The project studied an extensive range of
acteristics and resistance to secondary further cross-link to the poly-acrylic acid. cement structures under exposure to dif-
tooth decay, as well as capability of direct The end-product is a cement consisting ferent ultrasound frequencies to obtain
tooth bonding in order to preserve tooth of residual glass particles embedded in a
structure. poly-salt matrix. continued on page 41
CFRes_02b.indd 40 25-02-2008 13:59:25

hot microbes for industrial pathways
Microorganisms are a potential goldmine of genetic material to be harnessed
for use as industrial catalysts, many under inclement conditions. Researchers
from the PYRED project have isolated a gene for an enzyme that yields organic
products which form the basis of many manufacturing processes.
The microbe Pyrococcus furiosus (P. furio- the enzyme increases up to the expected
sus) is an amazing life form. It has an opti- 100 C in line with its natural habitat the
mal growth temperature of 100 C, a tem- hot sand by sulphurous springs. Not only
perature normally used to inactivate most does it possess high thermostability, but
8
microorganisms. It is highly resistant to it was found to display a broad substrate
ShutterStock, 200
radiation and has a very speedy doubling specificity. The researchers found that it
time. PYRED project partners aimed to prefers the reduction of ketones and the
capitalise on the extraordinary properties oxidation of secondary alcohols. Analysis
of hyperthermophiles like P. furiosus and to with gas chromatography showed that the
isolate the enzymes responsible. predominant adhD product was 2-pen- an alternative to petrol. It is also used as a sol-
tanol when 2-pentanone was used as a vent for the coating on CDs and DVDs.
As part of this research, partners from the substrate.
University of Wageningen in the Netherlands Funded under the FP5 programme Life quality
identified the gene adhD in P. furiosus. The secondary alcohol, 2-pentanol, has many (Quality of life and management of living resources).
This sequence produced an enzyme that industrial applications. In the bid to reduce Collaboration sought: information exchange/training.
promises to be a valuable tool in the the use of harmful global warming fossil
field of industry. The catalytic activity of fuels, 2-pentanol is an important biofuel and Offer ID: 3515
leading to safer, cleaner vehicles for driving a distance of 440 km. Each tank
incorporates four fibre-optic sensors and a
Aiming to promote natural gas or hydrogen transportation, the ZEM project thermocouple for onboard monitoring pur-
developed a demonstrator vehicle that allows online monitoring of gas storage. poses. Two pressure gauges provide pressure
measurement during refilling and working.
Future mobility relies heavily on the use of inspection as well as labour-intensive and
cleaner vehicle technologies such as hydro- costly pressure testing. Finally, a suitable interrogation unit is placed
gen-fuelled and natural gas vehicles (NGVs). in the trunk and connected to a laptop next
Natural gas and hydrogen fuels may bring Unlike these, the project developed a diag- to the driver. The demonstrator vehicle veri-
significant environmental benefits, includ- nostic system capable of fault detection and fies the feasibility of the developed technol-
ing lower emissions and improved air qual- early identification of critical conditions ogies, and it shows the potentialities of an
ity. Another important aspect of NGVs lies onboard using inexpensive sensor technol- integrated onboard monitoring system in
in the reduction of the vehicles weight and ogy. More specifically, the project developed the design of safer, cleaner vehicles.
hence fuel consumption. fibre-optic sensors, embedding techniques,
composite tank manufacturing methods and
Aiming to minimise potential hazards signature recognition algorithms. A demon-
related to the structural integrity of vehicles, strator vehicle was generated on this basis. Collaboration sought: information exchange/training.
the ZEM project focused on the safety of
the composite high-pressure tanks for nat- The FIAT Multipla 1.6 includes a 16v bi-power Offer ID: 3741
ural gas or hydrogen. Until now, most con- engine and three all-composite tanks housed
ventionally used inspection techniques for beneath the floor. The tanks offer a maximum see also page 22 (offers 3653,
composite vessels require off-vehicle visual of 144 litres of fuel storage, which is sufficient 3693 and 3679)
continued from page 40 ultrasound-treated materials for dental application
improved mechanical properties. Under The Ultraset projects results can contribute to
exposure to ultrasound, the developed glass the reduction in the use of amalgam-based
(ionomer) polyalkenoate cements were materials and consequently mercury con-
shown to display improved hydrolytic sta- tamination. Moreover, the advanced filling
bility at short times after placement. materials may considerably prevent tooth
loss, which is highly associated with speech
With excellent mechanical properties, such problems, eating disorders and loss of self-
8
as fracture toughness, strength and abra- esteem. Their handling characteristics

ShutterStock, 200
sive wear resistance, they may be polished allow easy placement facilitating dentists
and shaped immediately after placement. work significantly. Furthermore, associ-
Researchers gained a better insight into the ated costs for the patient may be substan- Funded under the FP5 programme Growth
clinical use and application of ultrasonic tially reduced in comparison to other fill- (Competitive and sustainable growth).
curing of these cements. Tests on the effi- ing materials.
cacy of new ultrasound tip geometries and Collaboration sought: further research or development support.
delivery systems were also conducted. Offer ID: 3646
CFRes_02b.indd 41 25-02-2008 13:59:30

Plasma technology produces better barriers Project partners harnessed a combination of
technologies in order to achieve the required
Consumer demand for convenience food requires that the contents product. Scientists at Vito in Belgium, the
remain unspoiled by microbial agents, oxidation and other contaminants. Flemish Institute for Research, amalgamated
Scientists have investigated nanocomposite coatings for use on plastic aerosol and atmospheric plasma technol-
films to improve the shelf life of processed products. ogies on various hybrid sol-gel precursors.
The result was a coating that was superior
Packaging is a multibillion euro indus- aging must be low cost, have an acceptable to the film produced by wet-chemical coat-
try, and its value is forecast to continue to production speed and possess adhesion ing with traditional curing methods. It was
rise. This development is partly driven by and printability properties for labelling. 10 times less thick up to three microns
demographic changes, with the consumer Solplas, an EU-funded project, has under- only. Not only that, but the oxygen migra-
increasingly demanding safe yet convenient, taken research into coatings designed for tion performance was more than 10 times
well-prepared food. Added catalysts to devel- plastic films for food and sensitive elec- superior for some of the sol-gel systems
opment are changing legal stipulations for tronic devices. With regard to food, low under observation.
labelling and product technology changes. permeability to water and oxygen and
anti-microbial properties are particularly The improved barrier properties together
Consequently, the properties of packaging important. with the faster curing rate for the material
must satisfy some very demanding criteria. are due to two main factors. First, the high
As well as protecting the item inside, pack- surface area of the sol that is atomised, and
8
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secondly, the plasma environment that is
highly reactive. These features combined
result in more cross-linking, which leads to
the desired novel properties of the film.
Project partners include manufacturing

companies and academic institutions.
Potential applications from this innov-
ation are multi-purpose given the range of
products that require packaging. This can
undoubtedly help to improve the competi-
tiveness of SMEs as well as the larger Euro-
pean manufacturers.

Offer ID: 3678
Plasma in health applications Moreover, through deposition grafting,

chemical functionalities with specific bio-
Plasma technologies have useful applications in many industrial sectors, logical functions can be introduced. The
like health with numerous functions in pharmacy, biology and medicine. plasma technology was also found suitable
for protein immobilisation on surfaces to
Plasma is simply an ionised gas, with one industrial applications, the Plasmatech induce desired cell responses. Researchers
or more free electrons that make this mat- network was built. The key project objec- also explored techniques for antimicrobial
ter electrically conductive and responsive tive was to collect, structure and manage adhesion and release as well as anti-adher-
to electromagnetic fields. The generation of information from the industry to inspire ent properties for proteins/macromolecules,
most artificial plasmas is derived from the new developments. Moreover, the network cells and tissues with the aid of plasma.
application of electric or magnetic fields. acted as a means for exchange of experience
through demonstration tests and experi- Several plasma sterilisers are commercially
The advent of this breakthrough technology ments between the different sectors and available, yet research in this field is ongoing
several decades ago brought several con- research. to investigate the full potential of plasma
sumer products with the most popular one, action to sterilise and clean surfaces. Oppor-
the plasma display panel that is used in flat - Special functionalities of plasma technol- tunities to complement plasma sterilisation
screen television sets. The first use of plasma ogies can also be introduced in applications include low pressure, thermal effect, direct
technology in a medical device application concerning surface modifications of medical destruction of DNA by ultraviolet radiation,
did not occur until recently in 1995. First devices. In addition, cold plasma chemistry erosion by intrinsic photodesorption and
applications involved surface modification and sputtering as well as hot plasma tem- etching of microorganisms by a radical.
techniques and sterilisation. perature can be employed to develop or
optimise biomaterials. For example, osteo- (Competitive and sustainable growth).
Aiming to promote the use of eco-friendly conduction in coatings and osteo-induction
plasma technology in the health, food and with bone growth can be advanced by using
environment sectors in order to create new plasma-based techniques. Offer ID: 3506
CFRes_02b.indd 42 25-02-2008 13:59:35

rfId pilots: towering solutions for global supply
8
ShutterStock, 200
The once imposing barriers to mass implementation of radio frequency
identification (RFID) tracking solutions along global supply chains are starting
to come down. Pilots are under way in some of Europes most important
industry sectors that should prove the business case for a number of RFID
radio-tracking solutions and promote implementation of standards.
The mass implementation of electronic, pean pharmaceutical market, supporting

Internet-based systems to track products a range of applications including product
along global supply chains in real time authentication and financial reconciliation
comes a step closer following a series of pilots systems.
involving companies in the pharmaceutical,
textile and other major European industry One of the biggest barriers to the uptake of
sectors, including the so-called fast-moving RFID in the FMCG sector has been the belief
consumer goods (FMCG) sector. that retailers will see all the benefits while
suppliers will carry all the costs. One Bridge In another pilot, electronics giant Sony is
The tracking of individual items, cases or pilot should dispel that myth. The confec- looking for cost savings and increased effi-
pallets relies on tiny RFID tags that can sup- tionery manufacturer Nestl UK is prototyp- ciencies in its service operations, using RFID
ply an electronic product code to a reader ing an RFID system for tracking assets, such tags to track products and parts between its
specifying not only the products ingredi- as plastic crates and roll cages, through their Spanish factory, its Dutch warehouse hub
ents, but also information on its maker, production process. They have identified and its German store and service centres.
place and time of origin. more than 20 areas where they believe RFID
will, in fact, deliver cost savings. There is more to Bridge than these pilots. It
The technology has evolved dramatically is also supporting the development of hard-
in terms of performance, quality and costs, Meanwhile, the French retailer Carrefour ware, software and standards that make it
says Henri Barthel of GS1 Global Office and and its supplier Benedicta are tracking a cheaper to implement RFID solutions and
coordinator of Building radio frequency range of reusable assets, including pallets share electronic product code (EPC) infor-
identification for the global environment and crates, with RFID tags and sharing the mation over the EPC global network of the
(Bridge), the EU-funded project that is information between the two companies to future.
behind the latest pilots. increase their efficiencies.
Because much of the information about
As the technical, commercial and political bar- Bridge will document the business cases product flows is commercially sensitive, it is
riers to RFID implementation are removed, achieved in these pilots as examples to other essential that access to it is strictly control-
the total number of tags purchased annu- companies so that they can gain from the led. Another group of researchers within the
ally in Europe is expected to increase from initial [lessons] and roll out the technology, Bridge project has developed a Discovery
144 million in 2007 to 86.7 billion in 2022, Mr Barthel says. service software prototype. It will provide
according to a Bridge survey. The total number the searcher with data on the movement
of locations with RFID readers in Europe Kaufhof, the major German department of goods along a supply chain and predict
should increase from some 2 750 to around store, is sharing RFID-generated informa- its likely destination. But it is more than a
450 000 during that 15-year period. And the tion with garment supplier Gardeur and search engine: the prototype identifies the
number of RFID readers should increase from testing the benefits of in-store applications, searcher to each information provider and
a few thousand to more than 6 million. such as smart shelves fitted with RFID helps to authenticate the searchers right to
readers. With Bridge support, the Austrian view that information.
Bridge participants see RFID as the route to clothing retailer Northland is also using
some fundamental supply chain improve- RFID to improve inventory management Each RFID-EPC solution proven by the
ments. One pilot aims to provide a bench- on the sales floor. Bridge project helps the movement towards
mark for traceability systems for the Euro- agreed standards and lower-cost implemen-
8
tation. Taking cost out is key to mass RFID

ShutterStock, 200
implementation, according to Mr Barthel.

Even where pilots show a good return on
investment, companies, particularly multi-
nationals, often baulk at the massive invest-
ments they would need to deliver a compre-
hensive RFID-enabled operation.
The standards have to be in place, EPC and

RFID solutions have to be plug and play, and
the return on investment has to be calcula-
ble, Mr Barthel stresses. When these three
parameters converge, there will be massive
adoption compared to what we see today.
http://cordis.europa.eu/ictresults/index.cfm/section/news/tpl/
article/BrowsingType/Features/ID/89409/highlights/rfid+pilots
CFRes_02b.indd 43 25-02-2008 13:59:44

Unwearable, durable components analysis of bearings and cutting tools for
machining.
of complex geometry
Based on the finite element analysis
A new software tool allows the prediction of wear behaviour and method, the software is suitable for simu-
Industrial technologies
durability analysis of industrial components of complex geometry. lation of the dynamic behaviour of a real
butterfly valve in terms of contact stresses,
The performance of machinery and aerospace the materials structure due to the associ- friction coefficient and contact tempera-
friction joints relies heavily on the allowable ated crystal growth. ture. In comparison to conventional meth-
contact loads and operating temperatures. ods involving expensive tribological trials
With the ultimate aim being to improve this One of the key project results involved the of butterfly valves, the virtual experiments
function, the TRIBO project focused on the development of a software application suit- are less costly for the selection of the most
development of advanced high-performance able for tribology and durability analysis. appropriate coatings.
solid lubricant coatings (SLC). The robust simulation tool offers strength
analysis for turbine blades restored through Funded under the FP5 programme Growth
More specifically, the project work coating deposition and destruction. The (Competitive and sustainable growth).
explored the use of high-energy fluxes for software also allows the user to perform
deposition of this novel nanophased pow- stress analysis for the glue layer between Collaboration sought: further research or development
support, joint venture agreement, information exchange/training,
der material. High energy fluxes which are friction parts in a knee joint model under private-public partnership available for consultancy.
characterised by high rates of heating or different boundary conditions and loads.
cooling can lead to minimised damages in Other useful applications include wear Offer ID: 3718
Fast track to processing of woven tems working in parallel make up the moni-
toring system during the processing cycle.
textile-reinforced thermoplastic components One system writes processing data on a hard
disk. Data includes information on phases
A successful new system for monitoring dynamic heating and cooling of the cycle such as the injection piston
processes in the manufacture of woven textile-reinforced thermoplastic movements during the mould filling phase,
components will lead to increased industry competitiveness. hydraulic pressure and the injection speed.
These processes are all shown on the com-
Under the umbrella of the Amiterm project, The main uses of the new system are the puter screen.
two new mould technologies were devel- online monitoring of the temperature of the
oped to improve energy usage during the mould, the determination of the running This system was successfully tested and sys-
manufacture of large thermoplastic parts. cycle and the flow rate. Pivotal to the over- tematic processing studies were planned
As part of this initiative, project partners all process control were the energy balance during the second year of the project.
at Regloplas AG in Switzerland designed a measurements and the resultant possibility
monitoring system for the new processes. of exchange of heat between cold and hot
Tests on modular plate moulds were carried circuits which may lead to energy saving. Funded under the FP5 programme Growth
out on several thermoplastic resins, and (Competitive and sustainable growth).
results showed that this system is applic- The monitoring system is an online unit Collaboration sought: information exchange/training.
able for monitoring JETex and HTex mould which is used for analysis of materials used
technology. with the JETex process. Two computer sys- Offer ID: 3685
New mould technologies for energy savings The processes were successfully tested using
a set of prototype moulds specially devel-
Two innovative mould technologies for producing large thermoplastic oped for this purpose. The first prototype
composite parts with minimised energy consumption were tested with was a flat panel for test plates and involves
the use of a set of moulds developed for this purpose. a basic tool frame for manufacturing of dif-
ferent plate thickness for testing both pro-
Current processes used in the production knitted) reinforcing structures. Microwave cesses. Designed for the HTex process, the
of large thermoplastic composite parts are or high-frequency energy is then used for second set included an aluminium mould,
extremely energy consuming. This is mainly dynamic heating required for polymerisa- an auxiliary one for injection moulding
due to the large amounts of energy required tion that leads to the formation of the ther- and the so-called polyetheretherketone
to heat up the mould tools very rapidly and moplastic part. (PEEK) polymers, a microwave-transparent
subsequently to cool them down faster than material. The third prototype was developed
they were heated. This energy balance is not The HTex process consists of positioning from aluminium with an optimised temper-
only tremendously expensive, but it is also of pre-impregnated textile inserts in a dedi- ature system for the JETex process.
environmentally unfriendly. cated mould. The inserts involve high-per-
formance materials (carbon, para-aramid or
Answering this need, the Amiterm project glass) coated with a thermoplastic resin. Once
developed two novel techniques: the JETex heated and compressed, the molten resin Funded under the FP5 programme Growth
and HTex processes. The JETex process becomes the matrix of the solidified ther- (Competitive and sustainable growth).
involves injection of a viscous pre-polymer moplastic composite. Whether it is the resin Collaboration sought: information exchange/training.
into a specialised non-metallic mould or the textile that is heated, it results in more
carrying textile (woven, braided, laid, energy savings than heating a metal mould. Offer ID: 3663
CFRes_02b.indd 44 25-02-2008 13:59:44

sailing into smoother waters The experience gained through the project
questionnaires will lead to a standardised
New guidelines aiming to mitigate motion sickness will increase methodology for evaluating comfort and
passenger and crew comfort on ships and improve reliability and passenger satisfaction onboard ships. Per-
competitiveness in the EU shipping industry. manent long-term monitoring systems
will be installed on ships including a set of
Ships are technically able to operate improve reliability and operability. Raising accelerometers, a wave meter and a PC unit.
throughout the year, but in reality shipping standards in these areas will also increase The PC unit will be used for data acquisi-
schedules are often stopped or delayed by the competitiveness of the European ship- tion and processing using dedicated soft-
bad weather conditions for many months ping industry. ware. The computer system will be able to
during the winter. The main reasons for monitor overall comfort levels on ships and
these potential delays are discomfort to pas- A questionnaire monitoring system has been adjust for operational guidelines on speed
sengers and safety issues. set up onboard certain ships including cruise and wave height in relation to passenger
ships, ferries, high-speed craft and catama- comfort.
The motion sickness prediction models rans. These are spread out over different geo-
currently in use are 25 to 30 years old. As a graphical areas including the Baltic Sea, the
result, the objective of the Compass project Mediterranean, the Norwegian Sea and the Funded under the FP5 programme Growth
was to create new standards for motion sick- English Channel. The questionnaires provide (Competitive and sustainable growth).
ness prediction models. The objective was crucial information on parameters of motion Collaboration sought: information exchange/training.
to not only improve the comfort and safety sickness and passenger comfort and the way
of passengers and crew onboard ships but to they are dealt with by staff. Offer ID: 3695
Purging nanos innovation bottleneck nificant impact. In the end, the NoE sup-
ported over 60 small-scale projects.
There is plenty of innovation in micro- and nanotechnologies, but bringing
new devices to market is often prohibitively expensive. Many microdevices These looked at ways to simplify the Design
have small production volumes, while design, packaging and testing are costly. for micro-manufacture process. In essence,
Now European researchers are breaking down the barriers by developing researchers learn about manufacturing con-
design methodologies that focus on manufacturing, packaging and testing. straints before starting a design, and they take
these into account during the concept phase,
In laboratories dotted across the continent, These prototype lab demonstrations look to optimise units for manufacturing processes.
dedicated and ingenious researchers work ugly, but often work, and they prove func- This drives down costs and the time to market.
feverishly for years, or even whole careers, tionality at the nano- or microscale. They
to increase our understanding of science at also often determine whether the invention The network funded research into ways of
the small scale. Along the way, they develop will ever see the light of day. reusing one design, or its building blocks,
new, innovative devices to detect pressure, for a different type of product. It also stud-
acceleration, temperature or direction and For certain types of device, targeting very ied more efficient ways to test for robustness
thats just the beginning. large volumes in sectors like the automotive and perform quality control. Already, these
and, more recently, the computer gaming projects have had an important impact,
Researchers now explore tiny devices that industry, there is a promising future, reveals though Mr Salomon admits that they are
eject a dose of medicine at predetermined Patric Salomon, a partner with the Patent- difficult to quantify.
intervals. They create entire, micron-sized DfMM network of excellence (NoE). But
laboratories or computer systems on a for many others, the lab is the only place But thats just the beginning. Patent-DfMM
chip. They are discovering just how much where these devices are ever really used. also conceived a series of service clusters,
room there is at the small scale, as physicist groups of specialists in particular areas of
Richard Feynman famously predicted The reason? Up to 80 % of the unit cost for micro- and nanotechnology, offering ser-
almost 49 years ago. micro- and nanodevices is in the packaging vices in design for manufacture, testing and
and testing phase, and the unit cost must reliability. These target specifically SMEs and
But innovation at the sharp end lags behind often come in under a euro. Many innova- can provide help for companies seeking to
scientific advances. Often the devices only tions are just too expensive to commercial- commercialise a nano- or microtechnology,
exist in the laboratory as a demonstration. ise, Mr Salomon notes. Mr Salomon notes. So far, Patent-DfMM has
set up two: one specialised in miniaturised
8
ShutterStock, 200
But not, perhaps, for much longer. health-monitoring systems (HUMS), the
The Patent-DfMM network was other focusing on reliability (Eumirel).
set up to find a way to cut the
cost of packaging, testing and In all, it offers hope of a commercial life for
manufacturing micro- and nano- the thousands of lost innovations gathering
devices. To do it, the 22-strong dust in labs across the continent, and more
consortium had EUR 6.2 million importantly, to make sure future inventions
funding from the EU. are designed for manufacture from their
initial development phase.
We had a lot of control over
how we assessed projects for
funding within the network,
Mr Salomon says. As a result, http://cordis.europa.eu/ictresults/index.cfm/section/news/tpl/
we were able to get quite a sig- article/BrowsingType/Features/ID/89405/highlights/purging
CFRes_02b.indd 45 25-02-2008 13:59:48

removing hard coatings with abrasive water jets urements. Feedback can also be obtained
from the stripping strategy. Other devices
An abrasive water jet (AWJ) cutting technology has been and machinery include the ultra-high-pres-
designed for controlled removal of hard coatings. sure pump with high-pressure pipes, valves
and drains, working cabin with safety
Developed by the Abrade project, the AWJ manipulator to which a water stripping grip- devices and work piece fixing and handling
can be applied to a conventional indus- per is attached. The gripper is made up of a device.
trial robot or manipulator. The technology water jetting nozzle, a hard coating thick-
includes an industrial robot or a simple xy ness measuring sensor, a water jet rotation The Abrade unit is able to remove coat-
system, together with ultra- ings from complicated shaped components
8
ShutterStock, 200
high-pressure water and abra- and it requires less manual labour. With
sive attachments. Further- the development of an online hard coat-
more, the gripper is flexible ing thickness measurement device, it is
and can be altered to differ- likely that unwanted base material erosion
ent water stripping grippers, through jetting can be prevented. This can
nozzles and sensor combin- offer an environmentally friendly and cost-
ations that have been cre- effective method for hard coating removal
ated for other work pieces as an alternative to the chemical stripping
and coating combinations. method.
The process is regulated Funded under the FP5 programme Growth

through the robot control (Competitive and sustainable growth).
unit combined with adap- Collaboration sought: licence agreement.
tive feedback from the
coating thickness meas- Offer ID: 3699
Innovative lanthanide compounds The developed lanthanide complex doped

polymers are capable of emitting in the
for optoelectronics infrared region by photoluminescence and
possibly electroluminescence processes. In
The Optical amplification in polymer-based materials and devices both processes, there is light emission due
(OPAMD) project has developed novel lanthanide complexes for to either photon absorption or an electrical
cost-effective and eco-friendly infrared semiconductor applications. field/current passing through. Their pri-
mary applications include infrared light-
Compared to its existing inorganic counter- of materials emitting in the visible spectrum emitting diode applications. For further
parts, polymer-based technology has been and in the infrared along with device demon- information on the project, please visit:
considered as more environment-friendly. strators for further commercial exploitation. http://www.tyndall.ie/projects/opamd
Due to its excellent performance coupled
with inexpensive production and ease of One of the key project results involved novel
manufacture, this technology is highly suit- lanthanide complexes of sandwich type and (Competitive and sustainable growth).
able for use in data, telecommunication and perhalogenated sandwich-type erbium. For
optical computing applications. the synthesis of these innovative complexes, Collaboration sought: further research or development support.
a wide range of compounds was devel-
Offer ID: 3736
Motivated by this, the OPAMD project oped. This range included quinolinate,
focused on the fabrication of new polymer- betadiketonate and sulfonyl imide as well
based materials and devices for further as other complexes of mainly erbium, neo- see also pages 24, 33, 34 (optical fibre:
deployment in photonic technology plat- dymium and ytterbium ions for applications secure in all the chaos), 36 (offers 3688
forms. Research work resulted in two families in the near-infrared spectrum. and 3652) and 37 (offers 3709 and 3668)
newly developed ancient copper alloys cover most of the families of the copper-
based alloys used in ancient years. The
Within the context of the Efestus project, a set of new copper alloys with 13 reference alloys replaced standard mater-
a microchemical structure similar to that of ancient alloys was produced. ials in tests carried out for optimisation of
the analytical performance of portable and
Conservation and restoration of copper- developed. In order to validate these tech- laboratory diagnostic equipments. For fur-
based archaeological artefacts relies heavily niques, researchers generated 13 reference ther information, please visit the project site:
on understanding the mechanisms of their copper-based alloys that are not commer- http://www.efestus.just.edu.jo/index.jsp
degradation. For this purpose, part of the cially available. These feature a chemical
Efestus project work was dedicated to the composition and metallurgical characteris-
systematic identification of causes of arte- tics that are similar to ancient alloys used.
fact degradation. Funded under the FP5 programme INCO 2
Their chemical composition distinguishes (Confirming the international role of Community research).
Based on this knowledge, innovative tech- five material classes, namely copper-tin, Collaboration sought: joint venture agreement.
niques for restoration and conservation of copper-lead, copper-tin-lead, copper-iron
copper-based archaeological artefacts were and copper-zinc-tin-lead. These classes Offer ID: 3687
CFRes_02b.indd 46 25-02-2008 13:59:52

Industrial energy savings with grinding technology
The ENGY project focused on improving the energy efficiency
of eco-friendly grinding technologies.
Grinding constitutes one of the key machin- generated during grinding can be exploited
ing operations in precision manufacturing to harden high-quality machined parts.
8
ShutterStock, 200
as its adoption leads to significant improve-
ments in the quality of finished parts and Within this context, a set of guidelines refer-
the performance of machines and tools. ring to the energy balance assessment in
Yet, it involves high amounts of energy con- grinding processes were released. Analysis
sumption, leading to system inefficiency of the process life cycle took into account Particularly in the case of grinding of hard-
and waste production. energy, material and coolant consumption ened gears, appropriate machine and process
along with the grinding wheel wear for both changes can offer an average energy reduc-
Urged by this, the ENGY project improved processes, grinding and grind-hardening. tion of the order of 38 % and consequently
the energy efficiency of grinding by follow- minimise environmental damage by 43 %.
ing an integrated approach on the entire Comparison against benchmark criteria that For further information on the project, please
grinding system. More specifically, the were originally defined within the ENGY visit: http://www.lms.mech.upatras.gr/engy
projects work addressed issues related to project verified the environmental bene-
machine, tool and process control. fits of grind-hardening processes. This was Funded under the FP5 programme Growth
shown for both bearing and automotive (Competitive and sustainable growth).
Apart from the traditional use of grinding as components industries. Adoption of opti-
Collaboration sought: further research or
a finishing operation, grind-hardening pro- mised grinding process parameters in the development support available for consultancy.
cesses were also investigated for reducing the defence industry may also significantly limit
operation time required. Thereby, the heat the environmental impact. Offer ID: 3739
efficiency measures for process improvements reduced processing time. The mobile meas-
urement system developed by the grinding
The tool and process monitoring system proposed by the ENGY project tool manufacturer Tyrolit Schleifmittelwerke
provides constant control of grinding machine functions, and thus allows Swarovski KG allows flexible monitoring
grinding cycle optimisation and reductions of machine downtime. and evaluation of fundamental process
properties.
Grinding was once thought to be a sec- with the establishment of adequate energy
ondary finishing process, providing good balances. Such simple information can retain much of
surface finish and close geometrical toler- the operators experience, and just as import-
ances. With recent advances in grinding To achieve these ambitious goals, a detailed antly can contribute to troubleshooting and
wheel and machine tool technologies, it has knowledge of the process behaviour had to achievement of the desired productivity. In
become a critical machining operation and be evaluated by detecting grinding forces the future, non-intrusive monitoring tech-
an attractive material removal process. and power demanded on the spindle motor niques may prove to be a valuable method
driving grinding wheels. In most manu- for acquiring grinding process experience
Further improving the energy and resource facturing operations, grinding processes are and the company preserving the experience
efficiency of the grinding process by a adjusted to speeds and feeds set by the oper- of operators after their departure.
holistic approach addressing the entire ators who follow a company-determined
grinding system was the ultimate objec- baseline for a particular job. Funded under the FP5 programme Growth
tive of the ENGY project. While looking at (Competitive and sustainable growth).
the machining process outputs, optimisa- In addition, it is the operator who judges Collaboration sought: information exchange/training.
tion of the machining tools performance if these company-set parameters can be
and the coolant support was sought along adjusted to obtain an acceptable quality in Offer ID: 3719
further information on the research results featured in this issue and

on the projects which have delivered them is available on cordIs.
offers articles are disseminated by the cordIs Technology Marketplace:

To view individual articles online, key their Id number in the offers search
window on the services homepage. To read up on the project presented
in the article, select view related result at the end of the text, then scroll
down on the next page for a link to the project description.
IcT results articles were sourced from the IcT results service:
http://cordis.europa.eu/ictresults
for more details on these projects and on their work, please access
the articles online using the Url provided in reference.
CFRes_02b.indd 47 25-02-2008 13:59:57

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ISSN 1830-8664

the magazine of the european research area

Studying the role of iron in heart

Grasslands grow as energy source,

Outreach for oceans, page 20

The leading edge: plastic fibre slashes

Optimising polymer processing,

CFRes_02b.indd 1 25-02-2008 13:55:56

2 research*eu results supplement No 2 February 2008

CFRes_02b.indd 2 25-02-2008 13:55:59

Energy Grasslands grow as energy source 17

Environment Outreach for oceans 20

research*eu results supplement No 2 February 2008 3

CFRes_02b.indd 3 25-02-2008 13:55:59

Industrial technologies Optimising polymer processing 36

4 research*eu results supplement No 2 February 2008

CFRes_02b.indd 4 25-02-2008 13:55:59

bIologY and MedIcIne

The study was completed in January 2000 with follow-up research

research*eu results supplement No 2 February 2008 5

CFRes_02b.indd 5 25-02-2008 13:56:03

advantage of being readily transportable.

continued from page 5 iron overload and liver brosis

6 research*eu results supplement No 2 February 2008

CFRes_02b.indd 6 25-02-2008 13:56:10

bIologY and MedIcIne

true among younger

research*eu results supplement No 2 February 2008 7

CFRes_02b.indd 7 25-02-2008 13:56:20

topography, soil, and available infrastruc- smolts at specific sites in

8 research*eu results supplement No 2 February 2008

CFRes_02b.indd 8 25-02-2008 13:56:24

bIologY and MedIcIne

recommendations for aquaculture in economical and in environmental terms.

efforts to quantify the lice infestation lev-

research*eu results supplement No 2 February 2008 9

CFRes_02b.indd 9 25-02-2008 13:56:27

anti-ageing treatment for T cells to proliferate were reduced. Furthermore,

10 research*eu results supplement No 2 February 2008

CFRes_02b.indd 10 25-02-2008 13:56:30

bIologY and MedIcIne

Intranasal flu vaccines ommendations. Firstly, for effective immu-

continued from page 10 genetic damage in elderly immune systems

research*eu results supplement No 2 February 2008 11

CFRes_02b.indd 11 25-02-2008 13:56:33

los uva-ursi, Epilobium montanum, Knautia

the yield of protein from microbial action.

The extent to which the grazer will assimi-

12 research*eu results supplement No 2 February 2008

CFRes_02b.indd 12 25-02-2008 13:56:41

bIologY and MedIcIne

research*eu results supplement No 2 February 2008 13

CFRes_02b.indd 13 25-02-2008 13:56:48

Throwing light on chromosomal disorders managers. Information updates are dissem-

health supplements from fungi

Coenzyme Q, or ubiquinone, is a famil- of carotenoids by different fungal species.

14 research*eu results supplement No 2 February 2008

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bIologY and MedIcIne

continued from page 14 health supplements from fungi

research*eu results supplement No 2 February 2008 15

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on the potential self-regeneration powers of intervertebral disc cells.