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According to experts, pasturing in Europe has been decreasing for many years. Today, a lot of different pieces of regulation in Germany and in Europe exist, affecting farmers when they bring their cows to pasture. Furthermore, there are social requirements for pasturing, which need to be considered. Factors like increasing relevance of animal welfare, environmental protection, and the recreational use of the environment and esthetics of landscape come into play. Therefore, scientific research and new solutions are needed. This paper aims to give an overview across selected pasture-related regulations affecting farmers in Germany and Europe. Furthermore, aspects which are not directly regulated by the government, but are expectations of society will be highlighted. Concluding from this, technological possibilities -already on market and in the pipeline of scientific research will be described. Results show that today several different attempts are made to improve pasturing. Most of these attempts focus on improvement of management tasks. Attempts also directly focus on technological improvements. It can be concluded that new tools for pasturing can increase productivity and simultaneously decrease management tasks. Nevertheless, pricing of these tools as well es the amount of bureaucracy will be the most crucial factors for their adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organic farming systems have become widespread in recent decades due to their popularity with consumers and their beneficial effects on the environment and biodiversity. Through the increasing number of available studies from farm surveys and comparable results from long-term field trials, the various real existing forms and intensities of agricultural management were subjected to a closer examination in this review. In this paper, the mean characteristics and the range of variation in crop productivity, crop quality and soil fertility as well as the importance and the extent of environmental impacts are comparatively analyzed. From widespread cultivation systems and forms of nutrient management from Central Europe with a focus on Germany, the following fields of influence were investigated and conclusions for the future optimal design of organic cultivation methods were listed: site, soil conditions, climate, phases of conversion and consolidation, crop rotations and farm structures, application of organic and mineral fertilizer types. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Medical data from family doctors are of great importance to health care researchers but seem to be locked in German practices and, thus, are underused in research. The RADAR project (Routine Anonymized Data for Advanced Health Services Research) aims at designing, implementing and piloting a generic research architecture, technical software solutions as well as procedures and workflows to unlock data from family doctor's practices. A long-term medical data repository for research taking legal requirements into account is established. Thereby, RADAR helps closing the gap between the European countries and to contribute data from primary care in Germany.Methods: The RADAR project comprises three phases: (1) analysis phase, (2) design phase, and (3) pilot. First, interdisciplinary workshops were held to list prerequisites and requirements. Second, an architecture diagram with building blocks and functions, and an ordered list of process steps (workflow) for data capture and storage were designed. Third, technical components and workflows were piloted. The pilot was extended by a data integration workflow using patient-reported outcomes (paper-based questionnaires).Results: The analysis phase resulted in listing 17 essential prerequisites and guiding requirements for data management compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Based on this list existing approaches to fulfil the RADAR tasks were evaluated-for example, re-using BDT interface for data exchange and Trusted Third Party-approach for consent management and record linkage. Consented data sets of 100 patients were successfully exported, separated into person-identifying and medical data, pseudonymised and saved. Record linkage and data integration workflows for patient-reported outcomes in the RADAR research database were successfully piloted for 63 responders.Conclusion: The RADAR project successfully developed a generic architecture together with a technical framework of tools, interfaces, and workflows for a complete infrastructure for practicable and secure processing of patient data from family doctors. All technical components and workflows can be reused for further research projects. Additionally, a Trusted Third Party-approach can be used as core element to implement data privacy protection in such heterogeneous family doctor's settings. Optimisations identified comprise a fully-electronic consent recording using tablet computers, which is part of the project's extension phase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities are major drivers of environmental change at all scales and are especially at risk from the ensuing effects, which include poor air quality, flooding and heat waves. Typically, these issues are studied on a city-by-city basis owing to the spatial complexity of built landscapes, local topography and emission patterns. However, to ensure knowledge sharing and to integrate local-scale processes with regional and global scale modelling initiatives, there is a pressing need for a world-wide database on cities that is suited for environmental studies. In this paper we present a European database that has a particular focus on characterising urbanised landscapes. It has been derived using tools and techniques developed as part of the World Urban Database and Access Portal Tools (WUDAPT) project, which has the goal of acquiring and disseminating climate-relevant information on cities worldwide. The European map is the first major step toward creating a global database on cities that can be integrated with existing topographic and natural land-cover databases to support modelling initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The Sarcoma Policy Checklist was created by a multidisciplinary expert group to provide policymakers with priority areas to improve care for sarcoma patients.Main Body: This paper draws on this research, by looking more closely at how France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom are addressing each of these priority areas. It aims to highlight key gaps in research, policy and practice, as well as ongoing initiatives that may impact the future care of sarcoma patients in different European countries. A pragmatic review of the published and web-based literature was undertaken. Telephone interviews were conducted in each country with clinical and patient experts to substantiate findings. Research findings were discussed within the expert group and developed into five core policy recommendations. The five identified priority areas were: the development of designated and accredited centres of reference; more professional training; multidisciplinary care; greater incentives for research and innovation; and more rapid access to effective treatments. Most of the countries studied have ongoing initiatives addressing many of these priorities; however, many are in early stages of development, or require additional funding and resources.Conclusion: Gaps in access to quality care are particularly concerning in many of Europe's lower-resourced countries. Equitable access to information, clinical trials, innovative treatments and quality specialist care should be available to all sarcoma patients. Achieving this across Europe will require close collaboration between all stakeholders at both the national and European level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews the legal experience of Germany, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania dealing with the films that were created in these countries during the Soviet period. These films do not only form a remarkable part of the cultural heritage of these nations, but also a possible source of revenues as well. Within this context, a particularly acute question concerns the legal fate of digitized versions of these films, inflicting a multitude of copyright law issues, as the majority of these films are still protected by copyright. In contrast to the almost identical legal regulation in the Soviet period, after the collapse of the Soviet Union all the four countries investigated in this paper chose separate ways to address copyright problems which soon arose, resulting in a surprisingly heterogeneous treatment of film copyrights, which spans from considerably user-friendly solutions to factual lockups of the film stock. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: This opinion paper describes the regulatory hurdles for a clinical oncologist and physician scientist to activate an Investigator-Initiated Trial (IIT) before and after 2004 with German regulation as an example. Changes in legal framework with impacts on time and costs to activate a clinical trial are described. Evidence needed to reach the objective of higher patient safety and trial quality by European Union (EU) Clinical Trial Directive (CTD) 2001/20 is discussed. Shortly after the beginning of the year 2000, multiple legal changes with impacts on the regulatory framework of clinical trials became effective almost simultaneously. They included the European Union (EU) Clinical Trial Directive (CTD) 2001/20 followed by major changes in national drug laws, the change in the legal status of German University Hospitals (1998), and a new disease-related groups (DRG)-based reimbursement system for hospitals in Germany (2000). Together, these changes created enormous bureaucratic and financial inhibition of activation and conduct of academic investigator-initiated clinical trials (IIT). Examples for activating clinical trials in oncology before and after 2004 are outlined and discussed, focussing on extended time frames, the establishment of centralized responsibility structures and the exploding financial consequences. In addition, the evolution of trial numbers and the distribution of trial initiators between "commercial" and "academic" over time are discussed together with the occurrence of clinical registries. At the same time, progress in molecular biology led to a plethora of new targets for effective pharmacological therapy of life-threatening diseases such as cancer, and the overall number of clinical trials has not decreased. Yet, judging the regulatory and administrative hurdles between scientific study design and first-patient on trial before and after 2004 and weighing these against the lack of evidence that this regulation has achieved its goal to enhance patient safety and trial quality, the necessity to completely overhaul this CTD becomes obvious. A main goal of such an initiative should be to minimize bureaucracy. For the specific situation in Germany, relocation of responsibility and freedom to operate in University Hospitals and Medical Faculties back to the physician–scientists and reduction in interference by legal divisions should be a goal as well as increasing the public financial support for IITs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A new retrofitting strategy by using prefabricated elements window machine. • Minimization of the renovation costs and speeding up the retrofit action. • A potential in energy saving and improving the Indoor Environment Quality. • Further significance in retrofit and healthy home office working environments. The renovation of existing residential buildings across Europe has become a key factor for energy saving and the improvement of Indoor Environment Quality (IEQ). This paper presents an investigation of IEQ for a typical 1960s single-family house in Germany before and after a new retrofitting strategy (prefabricated element with integrated ventilation and new thermal envelope). In-situ measurements were applied to investigate the energy efficiency and IEQ improvement for the new retrofitting strategy in temperate winter regions of Europe. The simulation model replicates the measured data to be closer to reality and simulates a home office (COVID-19) scenario. The in-situ measurements showed that our retrofitting strategy increases the indoor air temperature during the heating period by up to 2.5 °C, decreases relative humidity by up to 3.8% and increases CO 2 by up to 24 ppm than before. As the simulation results shows, the retrofitted home office scenario allows a reduction in heating energy of up to 77%, an increase in CO 2 concentration of up to 41.8 ppm, 0.5% less relative humidity and 1.6 °C higher indoor air temperature than that without retrofitting. The new approach to retrofit residential buildings thus showed a potential in energy saving and improving the IEQ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Pathogenic nematode Ostertagia leptospicularis, as the sole member of the subfamily Ostertagiinae, occurs in both cervid and bovid host species. The broad host specificity of this parasite draws special attention and requires a more in-depth investigation. This study was carried out to find out whether the differences in the nematode morphology were only due to the host influence, or whether genetic differences should be taken into account. To resolve this issue, the classification of O. leptospicularis was raised and discussed based on its host specificity, as well as morphological and genetic characteristics. A combined morphological–molecular approach was used to compare specimens resembling O. leptospicularis collected from naturally infected hosts of various ruminant species (roe deer, red deer, fallow deer, and cattle). Both morphological and molecular analyses highlighted the distinctiveness of O. leptospicularis collected from cattle in Germany, and therefore should now be considered to be a different strain that those collected form cervids in central Europe. Ostertagia leptospicularis Assadov, 1953 was formally described in roe deer Capreolus capreolus and has been reported in a wide range of ruminants, including other Cervidae, as well as Bovidae. Nematode specimens derived from various host species exhibit morphological similarity; however, some differences can be observed. It is unclear if this is due to the differential reaction of one nematode species in different host species (i.e., host-induced changes) or because of distinct nematode species in these hosts (i.e., species complex). This paper focuses on specimens resembling O. leptospicularis f. leptospicularis and its closely related species (Ostertagia ostertagi f. ostertagi) collected from various hosts. Morphometric and molecular techniques were applied to assess host-induced changes in nematode morphology and to clarify its systematic classification. There was an overall effect of host species on measurements of nematodes resembling O. leptospicularis (both males and females), but the distinctiveness of the specimens from cattle Bos taurus were highlighted. The results obtained may suggest that the specimens of O. leptospicularis from cattle in Germany and cervids in central Europe belong to different strains. Furthermore, nematodes from the cervid strain appear to circulate within particular host species, which can be seen in the stated morphological variations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When COVID-19 pandemic spread in Europe, governments imposed unprecedented confinement measures with mostly unknown repercussions on contemporary societies. In some cases, a considerable drop in energy consumption was observed, anticipating a scenario of sizable low-cost energy generation, from renewable sources, expected only for years later. In this paper, the impact of governmental restrictions on electrical load, generation and transmission was investigated in 16 European countries. Using the indices provided by the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker, precise restriction types were found to correlate with the load drop. Then the European grid was analysed to assess how the load drop was balanced by the change in generation and transmission patterns. The same restriction period from 2020 was compared to previous years, accounting for yearly variability with ad hoc statistical technique. As a result, generation was found to be heavily impacted in most countries with significant load drop. Overall, generation from nuclear, and fossil coal and gas sources was reduced, in favour of renewables and, in some countries, fossil gas. Moreover, intermittent renewables generation increased in most countries without indicating an exceptional amount of curtailments. Finally, the European grid helped balance those changes with an increase in both energy exports and imports, with some net exporting countries becoming net importers, notably Germany, and vice versa. Together, these findings show the far reaching implications of the COVID-19 crisis, and contribute to the understanding and planning of higher renewables share scenarios, which will become more prevalent in the battle against climate change. • During COVID-19 spread, energy load dropped significantly in most European countries. • Only some restrictions strongly correlate with load drop. • Generation mix and exchange changed in most countries. • The biggest decrease in generation was from nuclear, fossil coal and oil. • Intermittent renewable generation continued to increase also in 2020. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]