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Automation and robotization (A&R) is often the main driving force behind the development of advanced manufacturing, including the transformation of the company towards the Industry 4.0 model. Effective implementation and effective use of A&R solutions is possible only if the company has good prepared and educated employees. It applies to all levels, from the direct operation of machines and processes, through mid-level technical staff, to the management level. Nowadays, education of young staff, as well as training of those currently employed, requires the implementation of new solutions and methods of Vocational Education and Training (VET). They should ensure not only a high professional level, but also meet the challenges facing VET today: attractiveness of education for students, especially young ones, universal accessibility regardless of the place of residence, internationalization. The paper, presenting results of the MILAN project, shows that addressing those problems can largely be facilitated by the use of modern, advanced ICT solutions.

The assessment of microbiome biodiversity is the most common application of metagenomics. While 16S sequencing remains standard procedure for taxonomic profiling of metagenomic data, a growing number of studies have clearly demonstrated biases associated with this method. By using Whole Genome Shotgun sequencing (WGS) metagenomics, most of the known restrictions associated with 16S data are alleviated. However, due to the computationally intensive data analyses and higher sequencing costs, WGS based metagenomics remains a less popular option. Selecting the experiment type that provides a comprehensive, yet manageable amount of information is a challenge encountered in many metagenomics studies. In this work, we created a series of artificial bacterial mixes, each with a different distribution of skin-associated microbial species. These mixes were used to estimate the resolution of two different metagenomic experiments - 16S and WGS - and to evaluate several different bioinformatics approaches for taxonomic read classification. In all test cases, WGS approaches provide much more accurate results, in terms of taxa prediction and abundance estimation, in comparison to those of 16S. Furthermore, we demonstrate that a 16S dataset, analysed using different state of the art techniques and reference databases, can produce widely different results. In light of the fact that most forensic metagenomic analysis are still performed using 16S data, our results are especially important.

Viruses are the main cause of respiratory tract infections. Metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) enables unbiased detection of all potential pathogens. To apply mNGS in viral diagnostics, sensitive and simultaneous detection of RNA and DNA viruses is needed. Herein, were studied the performance of an in-house mNGS protocol for routine diagnostics of viral respiratory infections with potential for automated pan-pathogen detection. The sequencing protocol and bioinformatics analysis were designed and optimized, including exogenous internal controls. Subsequently, the protocol was retrospectively validated using 25 clinical respiratory samples. The developed protocol using Illumina NextSeq 500 sequencing showed high repeatability. Use of the National Center for Biotechnology Information's RefSeq database as opposed to the National Center for Biotechnology Information's nucleotide database led to enhanced specificity of classification of viral pathogens. A correlation was established between read counts and PCR cycle threshold value. Sensitivity of mNGS, compared with PCR, varied up to 83%, with specificity of 94%, dependent on the cutoff for defining positive mNGS results. Viral pathogens only detected by mNGS, not present in the routine diagnostic workflow, were influenza C, KI polyomavirus, cytomegalovirus, and enterovirus. Sensitivity and analytical specificity of this mNGS protocol were comparable to PCR and higher when considering off-PCR target viral pathogens. One single test detected all potential viral pathogens and simultaneously obtained detailed information on detected viruses.

Introduction: Viruses are the main cause of respiratory tract infections. Metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) enables the unbiased detection of all potential pathogens in a clinical sample, including variants and even unknown pathogens. To apply mNGS in viral diagnostics, there is a need for sensitive and simultaneous detection of RNA and DNA viruses. In this study, the performance of an in-house mNGS protocol for routine diagnostics of viral respiratory infections, with single tube DNA and RNA sample-pre-treatment and potential for automated pan-pathogen detection was studied. Materials and Methods: The sequencing protocol and bioinformatics analysis was designed and optimized including the optimal concentration of the spike-in internal controls equine arteritis virus (EAV) and phocine-herpes virus-1 (PhHV-1).The whole genome of PhHV-1 was sequenced and added to the NCBI database. Subsequently, the protocol was retrospectively validated using a selection of 25 respiratory samples with in total 29 positive and 346 negative PCR results, previously sent to the lab for routine diagnostics. Results: The results demonstrated that our protocol using Illumina Nextseq 500 sequencing with 10 million reads showed high repeatability. The NCBI RefSeq database as opposed to the NCBI nucleotide database led to enhanced specificity of virus classification. A correlation was established between read counts and PCR cycle threshold value, demonstrating the semi-quantitative nature of viral detection by mNGS. The results as obtained by mNGS appeared condordant with PCR based diagnostics in 25 out of the 29 (86%) respiratory viruses positive by PCR and in 315 of 346 (91%) PCR-negative results. Viral pathogens only detected by mNGS, not present in the routine diagnostic workflow were influenza C, KI polyomavirus, and cytomegalovirus. Conclusions: Sensitivity and analytical specificity of this mNGS protocol was comparable with PCR and higher when considering off-PCR target viral pathogens. All potential viral pathogens were detected in one single test, while it simultaneously obtained detailed information on detected viruses.

Coursevo (http://coursevo.com/) is a multilingual multimedia information system for managing courses, supporting learning processes and learning communities through the Web. Its multi-tenant architecture supports multiple instances of the underlying server infrastructure using the same core to serve the needs of multiple communities. An advantage of Coursevo in comparison with other eLearning systems is the emphasis that is given in the use of multimedia as a powerful learning means. Learning activities using multiple media can be more effective than doing it through a single medium (such as text), but what is important is combining media effectively. Coursevo is used in several vocational training and life-long-learning initiatives targeting engineers to establish and continuously support Communities of Practice (CoP). A CoP is a group of people who share an interest, a craft, and/or a profession. The group can evolve naturally because of the members' common interest in a particular domain or area, or it can be created specifically with the goal of gaining knowledge related to their field. We present the establishment of four training frameworks for establishing and supporting distributed CoP across European countries: (1) Computer Science teachers using Python in their courses; (2) Teachers using Arts in teaching all school subjects; (3) Civil protection Communities of Practice; and (4) Communities of Practice in Mechatronics.

Lisenkova K., McGregor P. G., Pappas N., Swales J. K., Turner K. and Wright R. E. Scotland the grey: a linked demographic–computable general equilibrium (CGE) analysis of the impact of population ageing and decline, Regional Studies. This paper links a multi-period economic computable general equilibrium (CGE) modelling framework with a demographic model to analyse the economic impact on Scotland of its projected ageing and declining population. The model quantifies the effect on aggregate economic variables, such as gross domestic product (GDP), employment and competitiveness, and also on individual sectors. With the principal demographic projections, the fall in population, and particularly working-age population, has a depressing impact on economic activity. By changing the demographic parameters, the impact of increasing net migration, a policy actively being pursued by the Scottish Government, is tracked. However, the required size of the annual net-migration needed to neutralize the adverse natural ...

SUMMARYThe prothoracic and propodeal spiracles of three honey bee strains used commercially in Greece (from N Greece, N Italy and Slovenia) were examined with a light microscope in order to detect possible morphological differences between the strains. This is an attempt to explain the apparent resistance against Acarapis woodi shown by the Greek Macedonian (N Greece) strain but not by the others. The propodeal spiracles of honey bees from N Greece and N Italy were examined, in addition, using a scanning electron microscope. Certain dimensions, like the length and the area of aperture in the prothoracic spiracle, were found to be significantly larger in honey bees from N Italy and Slovenia compared with the honey bees from N Greece. The length of aperture was found to be 648 μm in the honey bees from N Greece, while it was 13% larger in the honey bees from N Italy and 10% larger in the honey bees from Slovenia; the area of the aperture was found to be 103000 μm2 in the honey bees from N Greece, while it w...

Spanning the Early Nationalist, Antebellum, and Reconstruction periods in the U.S. (1780–1870), sacred music was sung in sacred and secular venues in public and at home. It survives as perhaps the most prevalent and best-documented piece of material artistic culture before the advent of recorded sound, with thousands of compilations. These sources document economic, social, cultural, and denominational aspects of society. Sacred music is uniquely posited to explicate these trends in their relationship to settlement and migration patterns before the American Civil War. Americans cultivated the folk hymn in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Folk hymns appear in three basic forms: (a) a sacred appropriation of a secular song/melody termed a contrafactum, (b) a tune with no secular origin but surviving in a number of variants or tune families, and (c) tunes that are parodies of earlier compositions. Although tune families remain more a product of evangelical denominations and churches, contrafacta survive from every level of society and theological disposition. This study documents all appearances of one folk hymn, “The Peacock,” a contrafactum originally conceived as military music and adapted as a secular song set to poetry by Scottish poet Robert Burns. Versions are found in all types of sacred musical material culture, including tunebooks, manuscript copybooks, and commonplace books. This ubiquitous tune appears in various settings from the Eastern Seaboard to the west and south. The surviving 8 secular and 11 sacred variants found in 62 settings allow for mapping of this contrafactum family throughout a 90-year period. These variants follow the major transportation networks revealing not only the means by which they travelled, but also denominational variants. The results illustrate that music remained almost exclusively a regionalized art form, allowing for insights into how Americans identified themselves by region and in many layers.

The population of Greece is projected to age in the course of the next three decades. This paper combines demographic projections with a multi-period economic Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) modelling framework to assess the macroeconomic impact of these future demographic trends. The simulation strategy adopted in Lisenkova et. al. (2008) is also employed here. The size and age composition of the population in the future depends on current and future values of demographic parameters such as the fertility, mortality rates and the level of annual net migration. We use FIV-FIV software in order to project population changes for 30 years. Total population and working age population changes are introduced to the G-AMOS modelling framework calibrated for the Greek economy for the year 2004. Positive net migration is able to cancel the negative impacts of an ageing population that would otherwise occur as a result of the shrinking of the labour force. The policy implication is that a viable, long-lasting migration policy should be implemented, while the importance of policies that could increase fertility should also be considered.

In this paper we describe an architecture, a language and an interactive graphical editor for the semantic description of services in digital business ecosystem environments. For the semantic description of business services, a MOF metadata modelling approach has been adopted where a meta-model provides the modelling elements needed to build custom service description models. The architecture can utilize complex or simple structures from diverse domain ontologies in order to specialise service models to business domains and also to allow for business differentiation through model variations. Finally we describe the implementation of the system as well as a UML-like interactive editor that facilitates the creation of the semantic service models.

This paper combines a multi-period economic Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) modelling framework with a demographic model to analyse the macroeconomic impact of the projected demographic trends in Scotland. Demographic trends are defined by the existing fertility-mortality rates and the level of annual net-migration. We employ a combination of a demographic and a CGE simulation to track the impact of changes in demographic structure upon macroeconomic variables under different scenarios for annual migration. We find that positive net migration can cancel the expected negative impact upon the labour market of other demographic changes. (Pressure on wages, falling employment). However, the required size of the annual net-migration is far higher than the current trends. The policy implication suggested by the results is that active policies are needed to attract migrants. We nevertheless report results when varying fertility and mortality assumptions. The impact of varying those assumptions is rather small.

Summarization: This paper describes the development of a multimedia information server that supports state-of-the-art distributed applications. This is achieved through techniques for efficient storage management of large objects, the provision of real-time data pumps controlled by scheduling mechanisms, multimedia object modelling and ODBMS functionality for the manipulation of objects. The system delivers MPEG-2 video and audio streams to multiple clients and supports browsing on the components of HTML documents and on MPEG-2 video sequences. The server functionality is exported as a proprietary application development interface in a sophisticated client subsystem. Current research focus is on content-based browsing and retrieval techniques as well as for the completion of the implementation of the DAVIC-compliant server functionality of the system. Παρουσιάστηκε στο: Second European Conference Milan, Italy, Springer

Summarization: We consider a digital business ecosystem environment where SMEs cooperate and compete. We aim to provide to each SME and the ecosystem with knowledge management mechanisms to support their needs for information, service findings and recommendations. We present the design and implementation of a platform that supports the knowledge management needs in this environment. We describe the business related knowledge managed by the knowledge base (KB), as well as the architectural components and the core services supported by the KB infrastructure. Since the SMEs are independent and their KB contents are evolving we adopted a P2P framework for the cooperation of SMEs. We present the P2P framework and we outline the knowledge discovery and replication mechanisms supported by the implementation. The knowledge management mechanisms described in this paper form the infrastructure for knowledge management of the Digital Business Ecosystem IP project of EU. Presented on

Summarization: The MOLE (Multimedia Open Learning Environment – http://www.moleportal.eu/) is a multilingual multimedia management system for managing courses and supporting learning processes and learning communities through the Web. It was developed by the Laboratory of Distributed Multimedia Information Systems and Applications (TUC/MUSIC) of the Technical University of Crete. The MOLE fosters distance learning by enabling communication between tutors/trainers and students, cooperation among students and access to coursework information and learning resources. In doing this, the MOLE platform also supports the combination of traditional classroom-based lessons and practical sessions, with self-study and eLearning. This, so called, “hybrid” or “blended” approach provides a significant learning opportunity as it combines the immediacy of communication among the instructor and the learners and the irreplaceable practical training in laboratories and the convenience, flexibility and self-regulation of education without the time and space constraints. This hybrid organization aims to exploit the strengths of both approaches (traditional and tele-education). In this paper we present the services offered by MOLE and how they can be exploited to establish and continuously support Communities of Practice (CoP) Παρουσιάστηκε στο: In Proceedings of EDEN2011 Open Classroom Conference, Athens, Greece, October 2011

This paper presents the SICMA Multimedia Information Server that was demonstrated during the first public trial of the ACTS project SICMA, which took place at the Natural History Museum of London and in the Gallo Romeins Museum of Tongeren (Belgium), from June to September of 1997. The demonstrator application, namely the “Virtual Museum”, is also presented.