1,720,994 research outputs found
Future ICTs for Active Ageing: Brain-machine and Brain-computer Interfaces
No full textThis chapter aims to exemplify the potential of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the case of brain-machine (BMI) and brain-computer (BCI) interfaces. Applications at the crossroads of ICT and cognitive science have been identified as one of the most promising application areas of the future by both the US National Science Foundation and by the European Commission. Both R&D funding agencies consider that the cross-fertilisation between information and communication technologies and cognitive sciences becomes a co-evolutionary process, where progress in one area accelerates progress in the other. Applications arising from this co-evolutionary process hold the promise of a large economic benefit. Recent bibliometric research does confirm these findings and pinpoint BMI/BCI as particularly impacting to society and economy. Generally speaking, however, the prospects of technologies with a long-term time horizon of a couple of decades are seldom discussed in the frame of active ageing. Brain-machine (BMI) and brain-computer (BCI) interfaces are no exception. However, discussing the potential challenges, opportunities and risks of emerging technologies and relating them to active ageing polices in a quite early stage of innovation can be a useful exercise in order to achieve a sustainable innovation process.JRC.J.4 - Information Societ
Challenges for Governmental Venture Capital Institutions and Funds
Get PDFThis report provides an analysis of the current financial and techno-economic landscape in Europe,
with a specific focus on the role of public organizations investing in innovative companies. While the
primary focus is on equity-based instruments, the report addresses the interplay between equity
financing and complementary financial instruments, as well as factual challenges to put them into
practice. It contributes to the understanding of Europe’s complex funding landscape, particularly
from the angle of public funding bodies. It examines the mandate and activities of governmental
venture capital organizations within the broader venture capital ecosystem. Drawing on empirical
evidence, the report highlights key challenges faced by Governmental Venture Capital (GovVC)
initiatives and explores potential avenues for improvement. The report is sustained by the outcomes
of a workshop held in Seville that brought together experts and practitioners who share experiences
and best practices on government-backed initiatives.JRC.B.6 - Industrial strategy, skills and technology transfe
Techno-economic Challenges of Audiovisual Search Engines
No full textCurrent retrieval tools (mostly text-based) are key technologies for the Information Society. Given the explosion of audiovisual data, future AV search engines will become even more central to society than they are today. The provision of relevant results in AV search is far more complex than in text-based search, and progress in AV search will depend on new innovations and also on improving existing concepts. For instance, retrieving relevant audio-visual material will benefit from new content-based search (audio, video, images) but it will also largely rely on meta-data (text) concepts. The technological challenges range from basic science to development tasks. Semantic approaches for search or novel technological concepts to master the generation and flow of huge amounts of data are examples of fundamental research tasks. Interactive search concepts, relevance feedback systems, multi-modal analysis or improved retrieval algorithms are examples of bottlenecks that must be removed to improve current applications.
Technology and business considerations go hand in hand. How to deal with the processing, storage and traffic of huge amounts of audiovisual data is a technological challenge that will require new computer architectures, and distributed search solutions. There are also important financial implications which could influence considerably the entry barriers for newcomers onto the AV search market. The deployment of AV search technology is, therefore, likely to reinforce many of current techno-economic trends of the web search market. Examples are the concentration effect of general-purpose web search engines, or the emergence of thematic search networks. At the moment, there is a clear distinction in the AV search market, with regard to web search, business solutions or mobile search, due to the nature of the industry, the client structure and the business models. In the future, these differences may blur. Web search engine providers are already starting to acquire companies offering business solutions and non-walled garden business models may emerge in the mobile search sector.JRC.J.4 - Information Societ
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Messages from a Foresight Analysis on Information Society Technologies
No full text"Foresight on Information Society Technologies (IST) in the European Research Area" (FISTERA) is a thematic network of researchers. FISTERA aims to accelerate the process of decision-making in research and development for IST in the EU. It is designed to provide useful information about key technological developments and potentials, applications that have social and economic benefits and the challenges and opportunities that arise in this context. Over the last three years, FISTERA has analysed the trends, drivers and challenges -more generally speaking, factors- which will influence future IST development and deployment. Europe�s position with regard to these "influencing factors" has been analysed in order to find answers to questions like: What are the elements of Europe's strengths and weaknesses in ICT as compared to its global competitors? What are the opportunities, threats and challenges for Europe? What should be done to improve Europe's situation? This paper presents the FISTERA methodology and summarizes some of the FISTERA work.JRC.J.4 - Information Societ
Search Engines for Audio-Visual Content: Copyright Law and its Policy Relevance
No full textThe first generation of search engines caused relatively few legal problems in terms of copyright. They merely retrieved text data from the web and displayed short text-snippets in reply to a specific user query. Over time, search engines have become efficient retrieval tools, which have shifted from a reactive response mode ('user pull') to pro-actively proposing options ('user push'). Moreover, they will soon be organising and categorising of all sorts of audio-visual in-formation. Due to these transformations, search engines are becom-ing fully-fledged information portals, rivalling traditional media. This will cause tensions with traditional media and content owners. As premium audiovisual content is generally more costly to produce and commercially more valuable than text-based content, one may expect copyright litigation problems to arise in the future. Given this perspective, this article briefly introduces search engine technology and business rationale and then summarizes the nature of current copyright litigation. The copyright debate is then put in the audio-visual context with a view to discussing elements for future policies.JRC.DDG.J.4 - Information Societ
Innovation Ecosystems in the Creative Sector: The Case of Additive Manufacturing and Advanced Materials for Design.
Get PDFThis report provides an ecosystem analysis of cultural and creative industry (CCI) sector with regard to the adoption of new technologies and as case studies additive manufacturing and advanced materials as these two technologies are becoming consolidated in prototyping and manufacturing in many industrial sectors, but are still in their infancy in the CCI. The introduction of these two technologies, however, is the base of emerging new business models as showcased by a number of promising startups. We identified 430 CCI-startups in Europe that operate innovative products or services and that were further analysed via an online survey to which 83 companies participated. In addition, we discuss the role innovation ecosystems for the CCI development in Europe taking four ecosystems as example, namely the ‘Finnish Additive Manufacturing Ecosystem’ in Helsinki, the ‘Design Farm’ in Berlin, the ‘Sustainable and Tech Fashion’ hub in Amsterdam and “Portuguese footwear cluster” in the northern region of Portugal. Our study shows that green and digital transformations make additive manufacturing and advanced materials technologies quite worth looking into for CCI firms. The survey demonstrates a high degree of business dynamism of those companies that have fully embraced additive manufacturing and advanced materials as their operational basis. Furthermore we show that an effective ecosystem are key for deploying novel technologies to the sector, mostly composed by small and very small enterprises.JRC.B.7 - Knowledge for Finance, Innovation and Growt
- …
