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This bibliometric analysis aims to analyze the high-cited papers (HCPs), those which have received100 citations) on Sarcopenia to provide insight into publication performances and research characteristics of the literature.Global HCPs on Sarcopenia research were identified from the Scopus database from January 1993 to August 2022. VOSviewer, and Biblioshiny software were used to visualize the collaborative interaction among most productive countries, organizations, authors, and keywords. Select bibliometric measures were applied to evaluate the publication productivity and their influence in this area.Out of 6219 publications on Sarcopenia only 398 were HCPs. These HCPs received an average of 271.7 citations per publication (CPP). The most productive organizations were the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Italy, and Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Center on Aging, USA. The most impactful organizations in terms of CPP and relative citation index were CHU de Toulouse, France, and Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Italy. The most productive authors were Landi F and Morley JE, and Anker SD from Italy and Germany respectively. The most impactful authors were: Cederholm T (Sweden), Cruz JAJ (Spain) and Rolland Y (France). There were few/no HCPs from South America, Africa, South Asia, and USSR.Sarcopenia research has been predominantly done in USA, Europe, and China, and rarely from low and middle-income countries. Further focus of research should be on its etiopathogenesis (especially at the molecular level), prevalence in different communities, methods to diagnose it in early stages, and its cost-effective management.

Although a theoretical model for the settlement patterns of Galician Palaeolithic has been proposed in the last decades, it has not been statistically tested. The present paper aims to check whether this previous theoretical model can be verified statistically. For this purpose, a methodology based on the creation of a predictive model has been used in which the main environmental variables were analysed and their suitability for predicting the location of Palaeolithic sites statistically verified. The predictive model shows that the most accurate variables are elevation, slope, cost to potential hydrology, the cost to wetland areas, and visual prominence. The results demonstrated that the theoretical model was fulfilled in some of the variables previously proposed. Thus, we have shown the usefulness of this approach to test hypotheses and the results obtained open new possibilities of analysis in the study of the Palaeolithic sites in NW Iberia This study is part of the research projects Dinámicas poblacionales y tecnológicas durante el Pleistoceno final-Holoceno de las Sierras orientales del Noroeste ibérico (R&D Projects of the Ministry of Science, PID2019-107480 GB-I00), Ocupaciones humanas durante el Pleistoceno en la cuenca media del Miño (HUM2007-63662/HIST) and Poblamiento durante el Pleistoceno Medio/Holoceno en las comarcas orientales de Galicia (HAR2010-21786/HIST). M. Díaz-Rodríguez is part of the CLIOARCH project which has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement 817564); and the NeanderEDGE project which has received funding from the Independent Research Fund Denmark (case number 9062-00027B). We are very grateful to the two anonymous reviewers and the editor, whose comments have contributed significantly and helped improve the initial version of this paper. The analyses of this work have been carried out in the statistical environment R (R Core Team, 2021) SI

Introduction/objective: West Nile virus (WNV) is one of the most widely distributed flaviviruses worldwide. It is considered an endemic and emerging pathogen in different areas of the Europe and Mediterranean countries (MR). Mosquitoes of the genus Culex spp. are the main vectors, and birds its main vertebrate hosts. It can occasionally infect mammals, including humans. Different environmental factors can influence its distribution and transmission through its effects on vector or host populations. Our objective was to determine environmental factors associated with changes in vector distribution and WNV transmission in Europe and MR. Material & methods: Systematic peer review of articles published between 2000 and 2020. We selected studies on WNV, and its vectors carried out in Europe and MR. The search included terms referring to climatic and environmental factors. Results: We included 65 studies, of which 21 (32%) were conducted in Italy. Culex spp. was studied in 26 papers (40%), humans in 19 papers (29%) and host animals (mainly horses) in 16 papers (25%), whereas bird reservoirs were addressed in 5 studies (8%). A significant positive relationship was observed between changes in temperature and precipitation patterns and the epidemiology of WNV, although contrasting results were found among studies. Other factors positively related to WNV dynamics were the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI] and expansion of anthropized habitats. Conclusion: The epidemiology of WNV seems to be related to climatic factors that are changing globally due to ongoing climate change. Unfortunately, the complete zoonotic cycle was not analyzed in most papers, making it difficult to determine the independent impact of environment on the different components of the transmission cycle. Given the current expansion and endemicity of WNV in the area, it is important to adopt holistic approaches to understand WNV epidemiology and to improve WNV surveillance and control. This research was supported by CIBER -Consorcio Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red-, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación and Unión Europea. ESP22PI05 and EU grant 874850 MOOD and is catalogued as MOOD 000. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of the authors and don’t necessarily reflect the views of the European Commission. Sí

This paper aims to examine the worldwide research development and trends in forensic anthropology by using bibliometric analysis. Scopus database was used to identify published papers on forensic anthropology from 1948 to 2020. A total of 4,499 records were analyzed for yearly publication productivity, authorship and citation pattern, types of documents, most productive journals, organizations, authors, and countries, frequently cited papers, most used keywords, countries of collaboration, and three-field plot analysis in the domain of forensic anthropology. The results indicated that the highest grand total publications were between the years 2016 and 2019, while the highest multi-authored publications were in the year 2018. The most productive journal, author, organization, and country were the 'Journal of Forensic Sciences' with grand total publications of 934, 'Cattaneo, C.' with 97 publications, 'Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique' with 130 publications, and the United States with 1020 total cited papers, respectively. The document with the highest number of citations was 'Buckberry and Chamberlain, 2002, Am J Phys Anthropol' with a total of 387. Three-field plot analysis regarding the most outstanding keyword-source-country was "Forensic anthropology"- "Journal of Forensic Sciences" and "Forensic Science International"- "USA", "France", and "UK". The predomination of certain countries over others in the field of forensic anthropology limits its prosperity as ethnic variety is of important regard. Research collaborations were mainly observed between the United States and European countries, which highlights the need for strengthening collaborations between developed and developing nations.

There is a growing disconnect between regulatory agencies that are promoting expedited approval to medicines based on early phase clinical evidence and health technology assessment (HTA) agencies that require robust clinical evidence to inform coverage decisions. This paper provides an assessment of the evidence gap between regulatory and HTA agencies on medicines receiving conditional marketing authorisation (MA) and examines how HTA agencies in France, England, Scotland, and Canada interpret and appraise evidence for these medicines. A mixed methods research design was used to identify the types and frequency of parameters raised in the context of HTA decision-making for all conditional approvals in Europe and Canada between 2010-2017. Significant heterogeneity was found across the HTA agencies in England, Scotland, France, and Canada in the assessment of medicines receiving conditional MA, with the highest likelihood of rejection present in Quebec (50%) and Scotland (25%). Rejected medicines were more likely to have unresolved uncertainties related to the magnitude of clinical benefit, study design, and issues in economic modelling. More systematic use of joint early dialogue and conditional reimbursement pathways would help clarify evidence requirements and avoid delays in patient access to innovative medicines.

Being an environmentally friendly fuel obtained from rapeseed oil, biodiesel is used extensively in Europe. However, the dependence structure between global crude oil prices and the European prices of biodiesel and rapeseed oil is understudied and unclear. In this paper, we address this gap by utilizing asymmetric copulas and cross-quantilogram approaches on daily data. The results of the DCC-Student-t copula indicate that during bearish periods the conditional connectedness between crude oil prices and biodiesel (rapeseed oil) prices are stronger than during bullish periods, indicating increased co-movement with a decline in crude oil prices. The application of cross-quantilogram indicates that an increase in crude oil price positively influences biodiesel prices reflecting an asymmetric dependence structure among the assets. There is evidence of shifts in the dy namics of quantile dependency during periods of financial and economic turmoil. Overall, the results show a significant dependence between the global crude oil market and the European markets of biodiesel and rapeseed oil in specific periods and under specific market conditions, which have important implications for policymakers and investors.

This paper provides an analysis of the performance of European packaging waste systems, focusing on Extended Producer Responsibility schemes and Producer Responsibility Organizations. We adopt two separate but complementary empirical analysis: i) an indicator-based assessment of the cost-efficiency and recycling effectiveness of PROs; ii) a regression analysis of the determinants of recycling rates at the national level. The analysis spans over 25 national schemes and 21 Producer Responsibility Organizations. Our findings show that systems that have higher recycling rates do not entail necessarily higher costs. Non-competitive systems are more successful in increasing recycling rates no matter the cost; moreover, they are better able to use funds collected from EPR fees charged to producers, delivering improved cost-efficiency. Furthermore, higher recycling rates are associated with systems in which local authorities retain the operational responsibility of collection. Systems that do not involve local authorities always underperform. The policy implications are clear: local authorities should have some responsibility for collecting and sorting packaging waste and competitive systems should not be looked at as a first choice when designing a national recycling strategy. A mix of policy schemes, including non-profit EPR, door-to-door collection and Deposit-Refund-Schemes can be effective strategies for increasing the recycling rates of the waste streams that need more intervention, most notably plastic packaging.

The visual arts are rooted in the life of the wider community and may lack explicit medical physics reference. Nevertheless, they can be influential and can illustrate, communicate, and inform. They may also inspire, challenge, heal, give pleasure, help put one's life in perspective and enrich the experience of being a practicing scientist working in medical physics. Eighteen works from 12 artists are presented. They are a convenience sample from the author's experience. Two (Irish), though less well known, speak powerfully to scientists. Two are of the eighteenth century. The remaining works are modern from Europe, North America and Japan. All inform and challenge our behaviour as medical physicists. Headings guiding the paper address: historical perspectives; similarities of method between science and the arts; the hand as special expressions of being human; communicating science; science and a sense of wonder; borders to science; and the importance of a quiet, still, reflective approach. The author's experience complements observations published by others. The artworks described delight and are an able ally in validating a life spent in science. They refresh it and are accessible to those willing to take a risk on the approach, with sensibility and an openness. The impact of art on science and medicine is also visible in under explored institutional art collections such as those housed at the IAEA in Vienna or WHO in Geneva.

Background : The exponential increase in SARS-CoV-2 infections during the first wave of the pandemic created an extraordinary overload and demand on hospitals, especially intensive care units (ICUs), across Europe. European countries have implemented different measures to address the surge ICU capacity, but little is known about the extent. The aim of this paper is to compare the rates of hospitalised COVID-19 patients in acute and ICU care and the levels of national surge capacity for intensive care beds across 16 European countries and Lombardy region during the first wave of the pandemic (28 February to 31 July). Methods : For this country level analysis, we used data on SARS-CoV-2 cases, current and/or cumulative hospitalised COVID-19 patients and current and/or cumulative COVID-19 patients in ICU care. To analyse whether capacities were exceeded, we also retrieved information on the numbers of hospital beds, and on (surge) capacity of ICU beds during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic from the COVID-19 Health System Response Monitor (HSRM). Treatment days and mean length of hospital stay were calculated to assess hospital utilisation. Results : Hospital and ICU capacity varied widely across countries. Our results show that utilisation of acute care bed capacity by patients with COVID-19 did not exceed 38.3% in any studied country. However, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Lombardy would not have been able to treat all patients with COVID-19 requiring intensive care during the first wave without an ICU surge capacity. Indicators of hospital utilisation were not consistently related to the number of SARS-CoV-2 infections. The mean number of hospital days associated with one SARS-CoV-2 case ranged from 1∙3 (Norway) to 11∙8 (France). Conclusion : In many countries, the increase in ICU capacity was important to accommodate the high demand for intensive care during the first COVID-19 wave.

Migrants in Europe are shown to have consistently lower uptake of preventive healthcare compared to European host populations. This paper examines how the transnational preventive care use of Eastern European migrants in their country of origin may be associated with preventive care uptake in their European host country. Preventive care use data in Ireland was collected on 119 Polish migrants and 123 native Irish from June 2018 to September 2019. Preventive care use data was also collected on the Polish migrant group in Poland during the same period. Preventive care use was captured by examining general practitioner visits, blood or urine test uptake, and cancer screening uptake. Probit models were first estimated to examine whether the Polish migrants were more or less likely to have used each service in Ireland than the native Irish. Second, three bivariate probit models were estimated to examine the use of each service by the Polish migrants only in Ireland and Poland as the two dependant variables. The Polish migrants are less likely to have GP visits, blood or urine test uptake, and cancer screening uptake in Ireland compared to the native Irish. The Polish migrants from this study are also shown to potentially substitute blood or urine test uptake in Ireland for uptake in Poland. Transnational ties can determine the preventive care utilisation of migrants in Europe.

Investment in action is vital to confront the challenges associated with chronic diseases and disability facing European health systems. Although relevant policy responses are being increasingly developed, most of them fail to recognize the role of rehabilitation services in achieving public health and social goals. Comprehensive guidance is thus urgently needed to support rehabilitation policy development and expand access to rehabilitation care to meet population needs effectively. This paper describes a framework to guide policy action for rehabilitation in Europe. The framework was developed in collaboration with the European Academy of Rehabilitation Medicine based on a focused literature review and expert consultations. A review in PubMed and grey literature sources identified 458 references and resulted in 135 relevant documents published between 2006 and 2019. Thematic analysis of extracted information helped summarize the findings and develop the draft policy action framework. This was circulated to a wider group of experts and discussed in three workshops in 2018-2019. The framework was revised according to their feedback. The proposed framework contains 48 options for policy action organized in six domains and twelve subdomains that address several areas of health programming. The proposed framework provides a structure to understand the policy terrain related to rehabilitation in Europe and the measures required for translating aspirational political pronouncements into targeted programmatic action and tangible health and social outcomes.

Challenges caused by global climate change arise several environmental, social, and energy production issues. These problems firstly concern interest of resource extraction countries, triggering inter-fuel competition in both directions supply and consumption of energy resources. Moreover, significantly increased green agenda leads countries to foster shifting to green energy production and discovering factors of most influential on the acceleration of RES consumption. The paper focuses on the impact assessment of economic, environmental and institutional factors of the country development on the future consumption of renewable energy sources (RES). To achieve the purpose of the study a panel data analysis method was used. The analysis was conducted for 41 European countries for 1995–2018, with countries being divided into members of Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD)/non-OECD and Extractive/non-Extractive. Four hypotheses were tested under the research: (1) Developing countries are characterized by the negative impact of CO2 emissions on RES consumption, while developed countries — the opposite; (2) Non-RES consumption reflects inter-fuel competition, expressed in a negative relationship with the RES; (3) Prices increase for non-RES contributes to growth of RES consumption; (4) Institutional factors reflect the level of ”market freedom and mobility” of the country and contribute to the development of RES. The authors confirmed all hypothesizes and showed that economic, particularly GDP, and institutional factors had the greatest impact on all countries’ RES consumption, while the environmental aspect is weakly significant for non-extractive countries. Consumption of fossil resources had a negative impact and confirmed the presence of inter-fuel competition.

This paper compares how forest ecosystem service–related policies are integrated in different national European forest governance contexts. Efforts to achieve policy integration at the EU and national levels are often described in terms of limited success. Our analysis of forest, energy/bioeconomy, climate, and conservation policies suggests that notions of progress or failure merit careful assessment. Combining theories of policy integration (PI), environmental policy integration (EPI), and policy coherence, we argue that integration outcomes depend on the combined effects of the degree and nature of PI, EPI, and multilevel coherence in the context of the prevailing forest governance system. The nature of the interdependencies, specifically anticipated synergies, and the scope of FES-related climate objectives, are crucial. Realizing the range of FES-related objectives entails safeguarding objectives not synergistically aligned with economic aims. Failures to safeguard biodiversity and regulating and cultural ecosystem services in the process of integration may have far-reaching consequences. Funding: This work was conducted as part of the ERA-Net Sumforest Project “POLYFORES” (Grant Agreement 606803). The related research was funded by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Sustainability and Tourism (BMNT) [grant 101201/1], the Ministry of Economy and Business of the Spanish Government (project code PCIN- 2017-050), German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) via the Federal Office for Agriculture and Food (BLE) [grant number 2816ERA03S], the Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development (FORMAS, Dnr. 2016-02111). The Russian study was carried out within the framework of CEPF RAS’ state assignment (No. 121121600118-8).

Bioenergy is currently a major renewable energy source in Europe but faces an unclear future because of conflicting modelling results and the lack of long-term policy. This paper identifies three challenges and potential opportunities by analysing bioenergy's historical national deployment, current policy support, and possible future roles in Europe. The first challenge is on the supply side. Calculating the supply-consumption dynamics and import dependency of EU bioenergy, we find that the security of bioenergy supply is challenging for liquid biofuels and those countries with the highest per-capita bioenergy consumption in Europe. Second, the definition of “sustainable bioenergy” in modelling studies is sometimes inconsistent with how EU policies label it. Third, on the demand side, there are unique but competing uses for bioenergy without a clear long-term strategy in Europe. We conclude with three opportunities to tackle these challenges for future research. First, utilising the untapped bioenergy potential with low environmental impacts could improve supply security. A clear and harmonised definition of “sustainable bioenergy” could better convey modelling results to policymaking. Finally, understanding where best to use limited sustainable bioenergy supply through sector-coupled energy system models can provide direction for a clearer EU bioenergy strategy towards 2050., Bioresource Technology Reports, 22, ISSN:2589-014X

Background Bovine cysticercosis in Europe has been known for centuries but the data showing the occurrence of this zoonosis are scarce. The aim of this paper is to review and present the current knowledge on bovine cysticercosis in Europe. Methods We conducted a systematic review of studies published between 1990 and November 2014. Qualitative and quantitative data on prevalence, risk factors, burden and interventions were extracted and analysed. Results Reports on prevalence were available for 23 European countries, mostly from western and central Europe; for a few of these only data before 1990 were available. Prevalence based on meat inspection was generally low (below 6.2 % in 95 % of the records) and varied between and within countries. Serology and detailed meat inspection provided a higher prevalence range (0.41–14 %). Only few studies analysing risk factors were identified. Reported factors related to access to pastures and risky waters, dairy production and uncontrolled human defecation in the proximity of the farm among others. Only one estimate of the economic impact of the disease could be identified. Recommended interventions were focused on increasing diagnostic tests sensitivity or the application of risk based surveillance strategies. Conclusions There is a lack of complete and updated data on most countries, especially in eastern Europe. Further risk factor studies might be needed together with estimates on the burden of the disease in all European countries. Risk-based interventions are being encouraged but current data are limited to guide this approach. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13071-016-1362-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

In this paper, we use micro data on a large number of European countries from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) to examine the wealth accumulation (saving) behavior of the retired elderly in Europe. To summarize our main findings, we find that less than half of the retired elderly in Europe are decumulating their wealth and that the average wealth accumulation rate of the retired elderly in Europe is positive though relatively moderate (6.6% over a 3-year period). These findings strongly suggest that the Wealth Decumulation (or Retirement Saving) Puzzle (the tendency of the retired elderly to not decumulate their wealth or to decumulate their wealth more slowly than expected) applies in the case of Europe. Moreover, our regression results suggest that bequest motives, generous public pension systems, and the reluctance of retired elderly homeowners to sell or borrow against their owner-occupied housing are the primary explanations for the existence of the Wealth Decumulation Puzzle in Europe.

In the coming decade, Europe will dedicate billions of euros to the necessary research and innovation (R&I) to support a transition to safe and sustainable food systems. EU Agencies, individually and even more so collectively, can make a difference in supporting the European research agenda. EU Agencies are knowledge centres, bringing together know-how to inform policy makers. EU Agencies that have traditionally dealt with aspects of human health, animal health, plant health and ecosystem health in silos, now need to take a broader perspective and move towards a One Health (OH) approach. In this paper, the authors highlight the need for more transdisciplinary cooperation in support of the One Health approach, identify challenges in strengthening interagency cooperation and provide recommendations to address them. EU Agencies are natural bridges between the scientific community and policy-makers and need to dedicate time and effort in fostering this dialogue, e.g. by engaging with relevant initiatives, research projects and European Partnerships. Research generates evidence that can be used also for regulatory science, in support of policy-making. It is urgent to define transdisciplinary research needs and formulate a One Health research agenda. This would be facilitated by establishing transdisciplinary One Health Research & Innovation governance, both at national and EU levels. Ongoing large initiatives, such as the One Health European Joint Programme, have demonstrated that active dialogue with national ministries and EU agencies is beneficial for all parties. Involvement of EU Agencies in the programming of the EU Research Framework programmes is beneficial, because of their regulatory science perspective, their expertise and current or future tasks on research topics. It is timely for EU Agencies to demonstrate leadership in moving the One Health agenda forward and it is encouraging that EU Agencies have committed to establish a cross-agency task force on One Health. [This article was written with the contribution of the One Health EJP WP5 Science to Policy Translation]

In research and policy design we mainly use a 'population weighted average concentrations' perspective to study changes in air quality, to evaluate if past policies have been effective, or to assess the impact of future air quality plans. This angle is useful and informative, but sometimes masks other important patterns. In this paper we propose to add, to the existing population weighted average point of view, a new indicator that brings to the fore the 'inequalities' in exposure. This inequality indicator is based on the Gini coefficient, usually applied in Economics and here considered to evaluate if exposure to air pollutants is equally distributed among population. A case study for this new indicator is then proposed, to assess the evolution of exposure to air pollutants in Europe from 2000 to 2018, in terms of both average exposure and inequality levels. The results show that using only average exposure metrics can mask other interesting patterns, and confirm the benefits of including this alternative perspective into the analysis.

African swine fever (ASF) is an emerging disease currently spreading at the interface between wild boar and pig farms in Europe and Asia. Current disease control regulations, which involve massive culling with significant economic and animal welfare costs, need to be improved. Modelling enables relevant control measures to be explored, but conducting the exercise during an epidemic is extremely difficult. Modelling challenges enhance modellers’ ability to timely advice policy makers, improve their readiness when facing emerging threats, and promote international collaborations. The ASF-Challenge, which ran between August 2020 and January 2021, was the first modelling challenge in animal health. In this paper, we describe the objectives and rules of the challenge. We then demonstrate the mechanistic multi-host model that was used to mimic as accurately as possible an ASF-like epidemic, provide a detailed explanation of the surveillance and intervention strategies that generated the synthetic data, and describe the different management strategies that were assessed by the competing modelling teams. We then outline the different technical steps of the challenge as well as its environment. Finally, we synthesize the lessons we learnt along the way to guide future modelling challenges in animal health.HighlightsThe 1st modelling challenge in animal health mimics ASF spread with synthetic dataA mechanistic spatially-explicit stochastic model was developed to represent ASF spread and controlSynthetic data concerned date and location of detected cases in pigs and wild boarModelling ASF at the wildlife-livestock interface illustrates the reservoir role of wild fauna

A diet shift towards a more plant-based food consumption is advocated for sustainable, health and ethical reasons. Still, a diet change remains a societal challenge. The objective of this paper is to identify how barriers towards plant-based food consumption are experienced according to dietary lifestyle in 10 European countries. A pan-EU consumer survey was conducted as part of Smart Protein Project. In total 7590 answers were obtained (49.5% women). Omnivores were more likely to score higher in the barriers to diet shift than vegetarians, vegans or flexitarians. Large effect sizes (Eta squared >0.1) were observed for the following barriers a) the lay belief that humans are meant to eat lots of animal-based meat; b) the expectation that plant-based food products would not be tasty enough; c) and the experience of not enjoying such products. Medium effect sizes (Eta sq. > 0.06) were observed for variables addressing nutrition related barriers “would not be filling enough” and “I would not get energy or strength from these products”. Promotion of plant-based food consumption should be targeted according to diet lifestyle, with focus on their sensory characteristics and on addressing cultural (lay) beliefs e.g. through knowledge sharing. Smart Protein GA 862957

Evolving testing methods in food Microbiology have resulted in the need for different types of microbiological reference materials. Based on the research articles available in this area, it is evident that development has been quite substantial in chemical testing compared to Microbiology. The primary reason could be the ease of spiking, and recovery in chemical RM as compared to microbiological RM. A significant challenge faced in recovery and stability during the development of quantitative microbiological RM depends on temperature, type of microbiological media used, method of analysis including reconstitution method, interference due to antimicrobial agents in food matrices, and competitor microorganisms present in higher numbers then the target microorganisms. Most of the research papers published on microbiological reference materials are contributed by developed economies were in the information related to complex food matrices are limited. Further analysis of different International Depository Agencies under the Budapest treaty indicates that there are only three institutes based in Europe providing quantitative or assigned value RM. This, in turn, highlights the scarcity in the availability of quantitative RM in Microbiology. This article provides a global overview of the availability of microbiological RM, microbial preservation techniques, protective agents, and elaboration on developing different formats of microbiological RM used in food testing.

In the late 19th century, pneumonia was one of the leading causes of death in Europe and the USA. Although at this time doctors knew about the infectious cause of pneumonia, they were not able to offer patients specific antimicrobial therapy. In the current paper, we translated into English for the first time and analyzed the almost forgotten medical report of a pneumonic patient written by the famous Russian writer and physician Anton Chekhov (1860–1904), which describes the classic stages of lobar pneumonia, now no longer observed in clinical practice due to antibacterial treatment. Despite the limited capabilities of lung disease diagnosis compared to the possibilities of modern medicine, physicians were able to diagnose lobar pneumonia using techniques of percussion and auscultation. Therapy in this case was limited to diet and symptomatic treatment and could only relieve some of the symptoms. This case history shows that in the early 1880s, in the one of the leading university clinics in Russia, despite the transition from humoral theory and ideas of natural philosophy to the concept of cellular pathology, there were still contradictory trends in the treatment of diseases.

Ongoing concerns regarding the morbidity and mortality from cancer-associated thrombosis led the European Cancer Patient Coalition (ECPC), the voice of cancer patients across Europe, to create a pan-European cancer-associated awareness patient survey to assess cancer-associated thrombosis (CAT) knowledge among a large population of patients with cancer. The ECPC survey represents the largest of its kind among patients/caregivers with CAT. It identified significant gaps in patient awareness and knowledge of CAT as well as a need for educational CAT-related discussions and interventions between healthcare professionals and patients with cancer and their caregivers. The aim of this paper is to highlight these gaps and to provide awareness of what/when information should be shared with patients/caregivers. Notably, the importance of providing information on how to reduce their risk of CAT, the role of anticoagulant prophylaxis and treatment (short- and long-term) including possible side-effects, and finally how to identify CAT symptoms early. Here we outline what type of information should be provided, as well as when and how to best discuss CAT with our oncology patients and their caregivers along the cancer care continuum, to reduce the risk of CAT and associated complications with a goal of improving patient outcomes.

Knowledge of the climate is essential to manage climate-related risks. Underpinning this knowledge is a huge range of climate research and climate service activities. There has been a marked expansion of such activities and while the numerous and diverse funding streams, activities and organizations involved means that climate service development is relatively well resourced in places, there is a risk that the landscape becomes fragmented, duplicative, confusing, and inefficient. To mitigate this, the European Commission established the Climateurope project to bring coordination to Europe’s climate-related knowledge base. Climateurope created a managed network to share knowledge, improve synergies and reduce fragmentation among the stakeholders. As the network evolved, we proactively strove for equality, diversity and inclusion, for example for gender, under-represented regions, and under-represented stakeholder groups. Climateurope explored and adopted innovative approaches to engaging the network members, including face-to-face networking events (Festivals), virtual networking events (Webstivals and webinars), use of arts, social media, expert groups, publications, and an active website. The mix and integration of the traditional communications, such as website, publications and expert groups, with more innovative and varied approaches, such as the Festivals, Webstivals, social media and arts, proved popular and successful in making the network active and attractive. We describe how the network and collaboration was established and managed, and we offer some recommendations for others based on our experiences, including consideration of equality, diversity and inclusion, consider strategies for growing, managing and sustaining the network, and consider a mix of virtual and physical networking events. This work was funded by the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme of the European Union: Climateurope - Linking science and society, Project ref. 689029. The views expressed are purely those of the authors who were all involved in the project and may not under any circumstances be regarded as stating an official position of the European Commission. Thank you to Rob Groenland and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on the paper Peer Reviewed "Article signat per 18 autors/es: Chris Hewitt, Janette Bessembinder, Mauro Buonocore, Tyrone Dunbar, Natalie Garrett, Lola Kotova, Stacey New, Paula Newton, Rebecca Parfitt, Carlo Buontempo, Francisco Doblas-Reyes, Francesca Guglielmo, Daniela Jacob, Erik Kjellström, Aleksandra Krzic, Helena Martins, Alessia Pietrosanti, Marta Terrado"

This paper examines the causal impact of retirement on preventive care use by focusing on breast cancer screening. It contributes to a better understanding of the puzzling results in the literature reporting mixed effects on health care consumption at retirement. We use five waves of data from the Eurobarometer surveys conducted between 1996 and 2006, covering 25 different European countries. We address the endogeneity of retirement by using age thresholds for pension eligibility as instrumental variables in a bivariate probit model. We find that retirement reduces mammography use and other secondary preventive care use. Our results suggest that health status, income, and knowledge on cancer prevention and treatment contribute little to our understanding of the effects of retirement. Instead, our evidence suggests important effect heterogeneity based on the generosity of the social health insurance system and organized screening programs., Highlights • Retirement reduces mammography use among European women. • We also find reductions in other types of women’s secondary preventive care use. • Changes in health, income and health beliefs do not seem to be relevant mechanisms. • Effects occur mainly in countries without organized screening programs. • Effects are larger in countries with less generous social health insurance.

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) might be a central technology to reach the decarbonisation goals of the European energy system. However, CCS deployment faces multiple economic, technological, and infrastructure challenges. Related literature tends to only focus on certain aspects of the CCS technology or to be limited to a particular sector perspective. In contrast, this paper presents a holistic modelling framework to analyse the long-term perspectives of CCS in Europe by extending the typical analysis from the electricity sector to the industry sector, and by including the CO2 infrastructure level with CO2 pipelines and storage. To this end, we use state-of-the-art models of the electricity sector (generation investment and electricity grid models), the industry sector, as well as the CO2 infrastructure sector. This unique modelling framework analyses the feasibility and costs of CCS deployment in the European Union towards 2050 in three scenarios with the same ambitious climate policy target (~85% CO2 emissions reduction). The main insights on the deployment of CCS in Europe hinges on two factors: i) the development of low-cost power generation technologies with carbon capture (coal and/or gas-fired), and ii) a sufficiently high CO2 price to compensate for the costs of deploying the CO2 transport infrastructure. Once CO2 transport infrastructure is available, CCS will be a preferred mitigation option for the industry sector emissions. The joint use of CO2 infrastructure by the electricity and the industry sector allows for economies of scale and economies of density. In the long term, CCS cannot achieve the 100% decarbonisation target of the energy sector because the technology can only capture 80–90% of the CO2 emissions of thermal power plants. Moreover, the advantages of CCS in terms of energy system costs compared to a system without CCS is rather small, in the range of 2%. It crucially depends on the costs of renewables and the costs of their integration in the electricity grid.

This paper studies the relationship between waste generation and economic development for a sample of European countries. In contrast to previous studies that have considered this relation to be stable over time, we apply methods for testing the presence of structural breaks located at unknown periods. This methodology provides robust evidence against the stability of the relationship, finding ruptures in the so-called dot.com crisis, in the early 2000s, and in episodes related to the Great Recession. Once these breaks are considered, we observe that waste generation shows considerable dependence on the evolution of the economy for those countries with the lowest per capita income levels. This suggests the existence of a trade-off between convergence policies and those aimed at avoiding environmental degradation, suggesting the need to maintain and reinforce environmental policies in the EU.

Objective The present paper extends the scope of testing Skog’s theory on the ‘collectivity of drinking culture’ to adolescent alcohol use in 26 European countries. The aim was to 1) examine whether changes in adolescent alcohol use are consistent across different consumption levels, and 2) explore whether trends in heavy and light drinkers diverged or converged. Method Data came from six waves of the cross-sectional European School Survey Project on Alcohol and other Drugs (ESPAD) between 1999 and 2019. The sample consisted of n = 452,935 students aged 15–16 years. Trends in alcohol volume across consumption levels including abstainers were estimated by quantile regression models (50th, 80th, 90th and 95th percentile). Countries were classified according to trends showing (soft/hard) collectivity or (soft/hard) polarisation. Trends in heavy drinkers were compared with the population trend. Results Trends in alcohol consumption at different levels across 26 European countries in the period 1999–2019 were not homogeneous. Collective changes were found in 15 (14 soft/1 hard), and polarised trends in 11 countries (5 soft/6 hard). Collectivity was generally associated with a declining trend. In 18 countries, trends in heavy and light drinkers diverged. Conclusion Accepting some variation in the strength of changes across consumption levels, changes in many European countries occurred in the same direction. Yet, diverging trends at different consumption levels in most countries indicate a less beneficial change in heavy compared with light drinkers, implying that in addition to universal population-level strategies, intervention strategies targeting specific risk groups are needed to prevent alcohol-related harm.