Publications Office of the European Union

Assigning uncertainty to ocean-color satellite products is a requirement to allow informed use of these data. Here, uncertainty estimates are derived using the comparison on a 12th-degree grid of coincident daily records of the remote-sensing reflectance RRS obtained with the same processing chain from three satellite missions, MERIS, MODIS and SeaWiFS. The approach is spatially resolved and produces σ, the part of the RRS uncertainty budget associated with random effects. The global average of σ decreases with wavelength from approximately 0.7-0.9 10-3 sr-1 at 412 nm to 0.05-0.1 10-3 sr-1 at the red band, with uncertainties on σ evaluated as 20-30% between 412 and 555 nm, and 30-40% at 670 nm. The distribution of σ shows a restricted spatial variability and small variations with season, which makes the multi-annual global distribution of σ an estimate applicable to all retrievals of the considered missions. The comparison of σ with other uncertainty estimates derived from field data or with the support of algorithms provides a consistent picture. When translated in relative terms, and assuming a relatively low bias, the distribution of σ suggests that the objective of a 5% uncertainty is fulfilled between 412 and 490 nm for oligotrophic waters (chlorophyll-a concentration below 0.1 mg m-3). This study also provides comparison statistics. Spectrally, the mean absolute relative difference between RRS from different missions shows a characteristic U-shape with both ends at blue and red wavelengths inversely related to the amplitude of RRS. On average and for the considered data sets, SeaWiFS RRS tend to be slightly higher than MODIS RRS, which in turn appear higher than MERIS RRS. Biases between mission-specific RRS may exhibit a seasonal dependence, particularly in the subtropical belt.

VocBench is an open source web platform for the collaborative development of datasets complying with Semantic Web standards. Since its public release – five years ago – as an open source platform, VocBench has attracted a growing user community consisting of public organizations, companies and independent users looking for open source solutions for maintaining their thesauri, code lists and authority resources. The focus on collaboration, the differentiation of user roles and the workflow management for content validation and publication have been the strengths of the platform, especially for those organizations requiring a distributed, yet centrally controlled, publication environment. In 2017, a new, completely reengineered, version of the system has been released, broadening the scope of the platform: funded by the ISA2 programme of the European Commission, VocBench 3 offers a general-purpose collaborative environment for development of any kind of RDF dataset (with dedicated facilities for ontologies, thesauri and lexicons), improving the editing capabilities of its predecessor, while still maintaining the peculiar aspects that determined its success. In this article, we review the requirements and the new objectives set for version 3, and then introduce the new characteristics that were implemented for this new incarnation of the platform

Le multilinguisme est inscrit dans les traités de l’Union européenne. Son application, qui garantit aux citoyens européens l’accès à l’information et à la législation produites par les institutions européennes dans leur langue, nécessite la traduction de cette information par l’intermédiaire de services de traduction intégrés au sein de ces institutions. Le métier de la traduction a fortement évolué avec l’arrivée d’outils informatiques performants, mais les nouveaux besoins nécessitent la mise en place de moyens technologiques innovants, mais aussi de stratégies en matière de formation et d’organisation pour répondre à tous ces besoins dans un environnement où co-existent 24 langues officielles.

Next Generation Sequencing technologies significantly impact the field of Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) detection and monitoring, with immediate uses in diagnosis and risk assessment. For this application and in general, considerable challenges remain in demonstrating sufficient trust to act upon the meaningful information produced from raw data, partly because of the reliance on bioinformatics pipelines, which can produce different results and therefore lead to different interpretations. With the constant evolution of the field, it is difficult to identify, harmonise and recommend specific methods for large-scale implementations over time. In this article, we propose to address this challenge through establishing a transparent, performance-based, evaluation approach to provide flexibility in the bioinformatics tools of choice, while demonstrating proficiency in meeting common performance standards. The approach is two-fold: first, a community-driven effort to establish and maintain "live" (dynamic) benchmarking platforms to provide relevant performance metrics, based on different use-cases, that would evolve together with the AMR field; second, agreed and defined datasets to allow the pipelines' implementation, validation, and quality-control over time. Following previous discussions on the main challenges linked to this approach, we provide concrete recommendations and future steps, related to different aspects of the design of benchmarks, such as the selection and the characteristics of the datasets (quality, choice of pathogens and resistances, etc.), the evaluation criteria of the pipelines, and the way these resources should be deployed in the community.

The Publications Office of the European Union has started a project for the long-term preservation of its digital publications to a new digital archival repository that contains legislative collections (such as the Official Journal of the European Union, treaties, international agreements, etc.), non-legislative collections (such as general and scientific publications), master data (such as descriptive, technical and provenance metadata specifications) and other data (such as datasets and websites). With the aim of safeguarding EU digital publications without any alteration during their life cycle, we have decided to follow standards ISO 14721:2012 (Open Archival Information System) to define the model of our digital preservation system and ISO 16363:2012 to verify the trustworthiness of the digital archival repository. In this context, we will deal with the following issue: how can we be sure that a digital object is the same as when it was created and has not been altered during its life cycle, both before and after its ingestion to the repository? In other words, how can our digital archival repository be trusted? The basic actions of the Publications Office towards this direction are: (a) to define a digital preservation plan; (b) to define and preserve representation information (master data and other specifications); (c) to define the designated community and its monitor; (d) to define and implement digital preservation strategies such as fixity, maintaining a read-only archive, keeping two copies in different physical data centres, etc.; (e) to define and implement provenance metadata; and (f) to have a technology watch of formats, standards and digital preservation strategies.

Allergic respiratory diseases are major health problems in paediatric population due their high level of prevalence and chronicity, and to their relevance in the costs and quality of life. One of the most important risk factors for the development of airway diseases in children and adolescents is atopy. The mainstays for the treatment of these diseases are avoiding allergens, controlling symptoms, and preventing them through sustained desensitization by allergen immunotherapy (AIT). AIT is a treatment option that consists in the administration of increasing amounts of allergens to modify the biological response to them, inducing long-term tolerance even after treatment has ended. This treatment approach has shown to decrease symptoms and improve quality of life, becoming cost effective for a large number of patients. In addition, it is considered the only treatment that can influence the natural course of the disease by targeting the cause of the allergic inflammatory response. The aim of this publication is to reflect the advances of AIT in the diagnosis and treatment of allergic respiratory diseases in children and adolescents reviewing articles published since 2000, establishing evidence categories to support the strength of the recommendations based on evidence. The first part of the article covers the prerequisite issues to understand how AIT is effective, such as the correct etiologic and clinical diagnosis of allergic respiratory diseases. Following this, the article outlines the advancements in understanding the mechanisms by which AIT achieve immune tolerance to allergens. Administration routes, treatment regimens, dose and duration, efficacy, safety, and factors associated with adherence are also reviewed. Finally, the article reviews future advances in the research of AIT.

The development of the Semantic Web represents an essential precondition to the definition of new scenarios for the future Internet. This perspective is of particular interest in the legal information domain for the specialized nature of legal information and the peculiarities of the legal users’ information needs. In this paper, the evolution in recent years of the Semantic Web in the legal domain is reviewed, with particular emphasis to the most recent developments related to Linked Open Data initiative and to the role, in the legal Semantic Web, of the Publications Office of the European Union in its two-fold role of public institution and legal publisher.

<ns4:p>Next Generation Sequencing technologies significantly impact the field of Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) detection and monitoring, with immediate uses in diagnosis and risk assessment. For this application and in general, considerable challenges remain in demonstrating sufficient trust to act upon the meaningful information produced from raw data, partly because of the reliance on bioinformatics pipelines, which can produce different results and therefore lead to different interpretations. With the constant evolution of the field, it is difficult to identify, harmonise and recommend specific methods for large-scale implementations over time. In this article, we propose to address this challenge through establishing a transparent, performance-based, evaluation approach to provide flexibility in the bioinformatics tools of choice, while demonstrating proficiency in meeting common performance standards. The approach is two-fold: first, a community-driven effort to establish and maintain “live” (dynamic) benchmarking platforms to provide relevant performance metrics, based on different use-cases, that would evolve together with the AMR field; second, agreed and defined datasets to allow the pipelines’ implementation, validation, and quality-control over time. Following previous discussions on the main challenges linked to this approach, we provide concrete recommendations and future steps, related to different aspects of the design of benchmarks, such as the selection and the characteristics of the datasets (quality, choice of pathogens and resistances, etc.), the evaluation criteria of the pipelines, and the way these resources should be deployed in the community.</ns4:p>

This paper describes the knowledge organization system developed within a project for e-Participation in the EU law-making process. The project aims to build a web platform allowing citizens and other stakeholders to actively participate in the EU law-making by providing comments and amendments, as well expressing sentiments, on pre-legislative documents. The semantic approach follows a pure RDF(S)/ OWL implementation for all the produced contributions (documents, comments, amendments, statistics), with the aim to made them available as Linked Open Data.

In this essay, I discuss the challenges of (engaging in) grapholinguistics, a young field that focuses on writing, a topic mostly marginalized within ‘mainstream’ linguistics to this day. Issues that are raised include the lack of writing-related classes in linguistic study programs, institutionalization (e.g., departments or chairs for grapholinguistics), and pertinent publication and presentation outlets. Furthermore, the essay highlights problems caused by the interdisciplinarity of grapholinguistics, including linguistic, theoretical, methodological, and terminological boundaries that must be crossed. These issues are partially addressed through a personal lens, i.e. my own ‘journey’ in the field thus far. This allows me to speak from (some) experience not only about the risks of focusing on a topic at the periphery of many disciplines and some of the setbacks this entails but also about my motivation behind proposing a (sketch of a) theory of writing in my PhD thesis that—based on linguistic Naturalness Theory—aims to offer a unified descriptive and explanatory framework for studying writing systems and writing in general. It also gives me a chance to argue that writing, which can be studied with many of the concepts firmly established in other fields of linguistics (as well as additional writing-specific concepts), is central to every language that is spoken, signed and written in literate language communities and should therefore be an integral rather than an optional part of linguistic theories and paradigms in general. Essentially, this essay highlights why doing research in grapholinguistics should be embraced rather than justified.

In this paper a pilot project on Linked Open Data (LOD) and e-Participation, promoted by the European Parliament and developed by the Publications Office of the European Union (OP), is described. By exploiting the LOD service for pre-legislative documents available at OP, the project aims at allowing citizens to actively participate in public consultations within the EU decision-making process. In particular it gives citizens the possibility to participate in the preparation of standard-compliant and process-compatible documents throughout the law-making. In particular they can provide comments and amendments on each document fragment, as well express their sentiments on them. The data produced will be available as LOD; for this reason a specific semantic approach able to describe documents and users activities is implemented.

The creation of Europe’s Digital Single Market requires interoperable multilingual resources in the Linguistic Linked Open Data (LLOD) cloud. The PMKI project aims to create a public multilingual knowledge management infrastructure, able to establish and manage interoperability between multilingual classification systems (like thesauri) and other language resources. In this paper the standards used by PMKI and a methodology for automatic mapping between multilingual resources, based on an information retrieval framework, is presented.

In this paper we report on the experience gathered in producing two gold-standard alignment datasets between the European Union thesaurus EuroVoc and two other notable resources adopted in legal environments: the thesaurus of the Italian Senate TESEO and the IATE European terminological resource. The realization of these two resources has been performed in the context of the PMKI project, an European Commission action aiming at creating a Public Multilingual Knowledge management Infrastructure to support e-commerce solutions in a multilingual environment. As of the numerous lexical and terminological resources involved in this project, ontology and thesaurus alignment and, as a consequence, the evaluation of automatically generated alignments, play a pivotal role for the success of the project.

Depuis 70 ans, les aléas de la construction européenne se traduisent aussi dans l’espace : les institutions sont dispersées au sein d’édifices plus ou moins reconnus, à Strasbourg depuis 1949, Luxembourg depuis 1952, et Bruxelles depuis 1958. Si ces métropoles ont saisi certaines étapes clés du développement institutionnel, comme autant d’opportunités successives, afin d’asseoir leur vocation de capitale, elles n’ont pas toujours anticipé pleinement cet essor, ni déployé des plans cohérents o...

L’étonnant destin de Jean Monnet comporte encore des moments d’incertitude dans l’établissement des faits et des interprétations pour la période d’avant 1945, en dépit de l’abondante littérature existante. Le déficit d’information est particulièrement important à propos de ses activités d’affaires dans les années trente. Cela se traduit, parfois, par une sous-estimation de sa culture et de son expérience d’homme d’affaires. Cette contribution prolonge un travail antérieur, elle vise à précise...

Abstract The assignment of ISSN to continuing resources is undeniably important. It identifies these resources whilst ensuring the traceability of their evolution over time, for instance possible changes to the types of media on which they are made available to users. Even during this age of new media technologies and electronic dissemination, the identification of these resources remains essential. Access to electronic resources can not be satisfied with a permanent URL; it is only a mechanism to access the publication through a simple standardized string. It does not provide the necessary information regarding the identification of the publication itself. Even though publications produced by governmental bodies are mostly not for sale but rather freely made available to the citizen for no charge, their identification through the ISSN provides invaluable information to the readers. Unlike traditional publishing where titles remain more or less stable, proof of their popularity, continuous resources in the world of public administration are often updated to reflect changing events and priorities. So alongside its role of identifying key titles of serial publications, the ISSN can also be used to monitor the political and social changes over a given period. Keywords: ISSN. European Union. New media technologies. Electronic resources. O ISSN na administração pública internacional: o caso do escritório de publicações da União Europeia A atribuição do ISSN a recursos continuados é sem dúvida importante. Identifica tais recursos enquanto assegura o rastreabilidade de sua evolução no tempo, por exemplo, nas possíveis mudanças nos tipos de mídia na qual estão disponíveis aos usuários. Até mesmo durante esta era de novas tecnologias de mídia e disseminação eletrônica, a identificação não pode ser satisfeita por um URL permanente; é apenas um mecanismo de acesso à publicação por meio de uma sequencia padronizada de letras. Não oferece a informação necessária em relação à identificação da publicação em si. Embora as publicações produzidas por entes governamentais não estejam em sua maioria à venda, mas sim gratuitamente disponíveis ao público sem custo, sua identificação por meio do ISSN oferece informações valiosas aos leitores. Ao contrário de publicações tradicionais, onde o título permanece mais ou menos estável, prova de sua popularidade, recursos continuados no mundo da administração pública são geralmente atualizados para refletir mudanças de eventos e prioridades. Assim, junto com seu papel de identificação de títulos-chave de publicações seriadas, o ISSN também pode ser usado para monitorar mudanças sociais e políticas ao longo de um determinado período. Palavras-chave: União Europeia. Novas tecnologias de mídia. Recursos eletrônicos. El ISSN en la administración pública internacional: el caso del escritorio de publicaciones de la Unión Europea La asignación del ISSN a recursos continuados es sin duda importante. Identifica tales recursos en cuanto asegura la rastreabilidad de su evolución en el tiempo, por ejemplo, en los posibles cambios en los tipos de medios de comunicación en que están disponibles a los usuarios. Incluso durante esta era de nuevas tecnologías de comunicación y diseminación electrónica, la identificación no puede ser satisfecha por una URL permanente; es sólo un mecanismo de acceso a la publicación a través de un encadenamiento estandarizado de letras. No ofrece la información necesaria en relación a la identificación de la propia publicación. A pesar de que las publicaciones producidas por organismos gubernamentales en su mayoría no está a la venta, sino más bien gratuitamente a disposición del público sin costo, su identificación a través del ISSN ofrece informaciones valiosas a los lectores. Al contrario de publicaciones tradicionales, donde el título permanece más o menos estable, prueba de su popularidad, recursos continuados en el mundo de la administración pública son generalmente actualizados para reflejar cambios de acontecimientos y prioridades. Así que junto con su papel de identificación de títulos clave de publicaciones seriadas, el ISSN también puede ser usado para monitorear los cambios sociales y políticos en un determinado período. Palabras clave: Unión Europea. Nuevas tecnologías de comunicación. Recursos electrónicos

Knowledge acquisition has been and still remains a hard problem. When it comes to eliciting knowledge from human subjects, an artificial interviewer can be of tremendous benefit. In this paper we present a discourse model for representing the explicit propositional content of a text along with question raising mechanism based on it. This feature is perfectly aligned with the purpose of acquiring more knowledge from the human respondent and acting as a self-extending knowledge base.

Abstract The assignment of ISSN to continuing resources is undeniably important. It identifies these resources whilst ensuring the traceability of their evolution over time, for instance possible changes to the types of media on which they are made available to users. Even during this age of new media technologies and electronic dissemination, the identification of these resources remains essential. Access to electronic resources can not be satisfied with a permanent URL; it is only a mechanism to access the publication through a simple standardized string. It does not provide the necessary information regarding the identification of the publication itself. Even though publications produced by governmental bodies are mostly not for sale but rather freely made available to the citizen for no charge, their identification through the ISSN provides invaluable information to the readers. Unlike traditional publishing where titles remain more or less stable, proof of their popularity, continuous resources in the world of public administration are often updated to reflect changing events and priorities. So alongside its role of identifying key titles of serial publications, the ISSN can also be used to monitor the political and social changes over a given period. Keywords: ISSN. European Union. New media technologies. Electronic resources. O ISSN na administração pública internacional: o caso do escritório de publicações da União Europeia A atribuição do ISSN a recursos continuados é sem dúvida importante. Identifica tais recursos enquanto assegura o rastreabilidade de sua evolução no tempo, por exemplo, nas possíveis mudanças nos tipos de mídia na qual estão disponíveis aos usuários. Até mesmo durante esta era de novas tecnologias de mídia e disseminação eletrônica, a identificação não pode ser satisfeita por um URL permanente; é apenas um mecanismo de acesso à publicação por meio de uma sequencia padronizada de letras. Não oferece a informação necessária em relação à identificação da publicação em si. Embora as publicações produzidas por entes governamentais não estejam em sua maioria à venda, mas sim gratuitamente disponíveis ao público sem custo, sua identificação por meio do ISSN oferece informações valiosas aos leitores. Ao contrário de publicações tradicionais, onde o título permanece mais ou menos estável, prova de sua popularidade, recursos continuados no mundo da administração pública são geralmente atualizados para refletir mudanças de eventos e prioridades. Assim, junto com seu papel de identificação de títulos-chave de publicações seriadas, o ISSN também pode ser usado para monitorar mudanças sociais e políticas ao longo de um determinado período. Palavras-chave: União Europeia. Novas tecnologias de mídia. Recursos eletrônicos. El ISSN en la administración pública internacional: el caso del escritorio de publicaciones de la Unión Europea La asignación del ISSN a recursos continuados es sin duda importante. Identifica tales recursos en cuanto asegura la rastreabilidad de su evolución en el tiempo, por ejemplo, en los posibles cambios en los tipos de medios de comunicación en que están disponibles a los usuarios. Incluso durante esta era de nuevas tecnologías de comunicación y diseminación electrónica, la identificación no puede ser satisfecha por una URL permanente; es sólo un mecanismo de acceso a la publicación a través de un encadenamiento estandarizado de letras. No ofrece la información necesaria en relación a la identificación de la propia publicación. A pesar de que las publicaciones producidas por organismos gubernamentales en su mayoría no está a la venta, sino más bien gratuitamente a disposición del público sin costo, su identificación a través del ISSN ofrece informaciones valiosas a los lectores. Al contrario de publicaciones tradicionales, donde el título permanece más o menos estable, prueba de su popularidad, recursos continuados en el mundo de la administración pública son generalmente actualizados para reflejar cambios de acontecimientos y prioridades. Así que junto con su papel de identificación de títulos clave de publicaciones seriadas, el ISSN también puede ser usado para monitorear los cambios sociales y políticos en un determinado período. Palabras clave: Unión Europea. Nuevas tecnologías de comunicación. Recursos electrónicos

The paper analyses recent decisions delivered by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) addressing the contemporary challenges facing selective distribution systems. It addresses the legality of restrictions of online sales imposed on distributors. In Coty, a case concerning the selective distribution of luxury products, the CJEU ruled that the restriction of using third-party platforms was compatible with competition law. In order to reach that conclusion, it relied on its trademark jurisprudence. In this regard, several issues emerge: the link between trademark and competition law and the applicability of the ruling on non-luxury products. Coty presents a departure from the CJEU’s earlier judgement delivered in Pierre Fabre and different national authorities interpreted it differently. It seems that the debate over these issues is far from over. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the discussion trying to reconcile diverging decisions. It is principally based on a case-law analysis, providing critical assessment of the decisions under scrutiny (i.e. CJEU’s case law and the divergent decisions delivered by different national authorities). The study is supported by an analysis of scientific legal and economic papers concerning selective distribution and e-commerce. The research shows that the outcome of the cases depends largely on the concrete factual circumstances. However, certain points appear to be relevant for all the analysed cases, i.e. the applicability of Coty to non-luxury products and the extent of restrictions that triggers the breach of competition law.

La refonte du droit communautaire primaire relatif au statut de sept régions ultramarines de la Communauté européenne a été réclamée dès 1995, par les Présidents des Exécutifs régionaux concernés, en vue de desserrer les contraintes juridiques précédentes, mais dans le souci de préserver les avantages tirés du droit commun. La rédaction du nouvel article 299 § 2 du traité CE, à la suite de l’entrée en vigueur du traité d’Amsterdam le 1er mai 1999, s’avère décevante. En effet, par-delà une rédaction pour le moins confuse, elle laisse planer bien des incertitudes sur le degré de différenciation désormais licite à l’intérieur d’un ordre juridique tourné vers l’intégration. La présente étude s’attache à mettre en lumière que si ces régions peuvent bénéficier au moins des mêmes possibilités de différenciation juridique que la plupart des régions européennes – au prix d’exigences de procédure souvent complexes –, on peut parler d’un statut propre aux sept régions ultrapériphériques dans la mesure où sont tolérés des écarts supplémentaires par rapport au droit commun.Cependant, si la légitimité de dispositions particulières est amplement explicitée dans la nouvelle rédaction, celle-ci évoque des limites qu’il serait illicite de transgresser, par le rappel de l’obligation de ne pas nuire à “ l’intégrité et à la cohérence de l’ordre juridique communautaire ”. La jurisprudence récente de la Cour de Justice peut fournir des pistes sur la possible conciliation entre le principe d’intégration et des altérations tolérables à la portée de clauses du traité. Le régime juridique n’étant pas celui de la dérogation et les exigences de procédure pouvant s’avérer plus complexes que ce qui découle de la première lecture de la nouvelle stipulation, une clarification semble souhaitable à l’occasion d’une prochaine révision.