Performing Arts Curation as a Means of Advocating for Change in Cultural Policy

This article explores the potentials of performing arts curation to challenge current European cultural policies. It opens with a brief comparison of the genealogy of the curator in the visual and performing arts. Suzana Milevska’s concept of “curatorial agency” and contemporary understandings of the “curator as an intermediary” serve to highlight the discrepancies between the socio-political conditions of production and circulation in the two fields. The second part of the article draws on interviews with five performing arts curators from independent organizations active within European project networks to further examine the implications of curating as a mediating cultural-political practice. Finally, in a context where cultural policies increasingly support market-oriented cultural actors, it calls for a stronger accountability of the performing arts curator in the negotiation of values between the artistic community, audiences, and policymakers.

Information Activity of a Large European Project in Social Media

Purpose: The aim of the article is to present the information activity of a large European project based on information policy in social media. Social media are an excellent means of reaching a wide audience, while activity in this sphere reflects the degree of organisation of project partners and their involvement in achieving the project`s objectives. Design/methodology/approach: The present paper makes use of the experience gained while promoting the results of the GoSmart BSR project via social media. The GoSmart BSR project is concerned with enhancing the low capacity for innovation in less developed Baltic Sea Regions (BSR) through mutual learning, translating smart specialisation strategies (S3) into practical joint activities of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), and applying best practices used in better developed regions. The project is fully integrated with 3S and aims at promoting efficient co-operation between the industrial sector, the R&D sector, and the authorities, following a transnational approach. Findings: Social media play a significant role in the three phases of the project life, i.e. disseminating knowledge (raising awareness), collecting and verifying information that has been acquired during the project, and storing and disseminating the knowledge acquired during the project. Originality/value: research on Social Media profiles is predominantly descriptive and focused on the organizational perspective all projects R&D. This research paper contributes to both theory and practice by studying the causal impact of these guidelines on research teams.

New opportunities for identification of precursors of sea earthquakes

In many publications, as well as in media statements, prominent foreign and Bulgarian seismologists admit that seismology still does not have reliable methods and technical means for the identification of earthquake precursors in marine conditions (short-term forecast). Several facts, circumstances, and considerations are presented, motivating the need to immediately start experimental research in this area. A Bulgarian patent of a device for capturing underwater gas sources is offered for transmitting characteristics of the underwater gas source to a receiving device on land, indicating an impending earthquake. A strategy for experimentation and application of the device through the implementation of a new European project, uniting the forces and capabilities of the South European countries, is being proposed.

A proof-of-concept study applying machine learning methods to putative risk factors for eating disorders: results from the multi-centre European project on healthy eating

Background Despite a wide range of proposed risk factors and theoretical models, prediction of eating disorder (ED) onset remains poor. This study undertook the first comparison of two machine learning (ML) approaches [penalised logistic regression (LASSO), and prediction rule ensembles (PREs)] to conventional logistic regression (LR) models to enhance prediction of ED onset and differential ED diagnoses from a range of putative risk factors. Method Data were part of a European Project and comprised 1402 participants, 642 ED patients [52% with anorexia nervosa (AN) and 40% with bulimia nervosa (BN)] and 760 controls. The Cross-Cultural Risk Factor Questionnaire, which assesses retrospectively a range of sociocultural and psychological ED risk factors occurring before the age of 12 years (46 predictors in total), was used. Results All three statistical approaches had satisfactory model accuracy, with an average area under the curve (AUC) of 86% for predicting ED onset and 70% for predicting AN v. BN. Predictive performance was greatest for the two regression methods (LR and LASSO), although the PRE technique relied on fewer predictors with comparable accuracy. The individual risk factors differed depending on the outcome classification (EDs v. non-EDs and AN v. BN). Conclusions Even though the conventional LR performed comparably to the ML approaches in terms of predictive accuracy, the ML methods produced more parsimonious predictive models. ML approaches offer a viable way to modify screening practices for ED risk that balance accuracy against participant burden.

Development of an Unified Food Composition Database for the European Project “Stance4Health”

The European Commission funded project Stance4Health (S4H) aims to develop a complete personalised nutrition service. In order to succeed, sources of information on nutritional composition and other characteristics of foods need to be as comprehensive as possible. Food composition tables or databases (FCT/FCDB) are the most commonly used tools for this purpose. The aim of this study is to describe the harmonisation efforts carried out to obtain the Stance4Health FCDB. A total of 10 FCT/FCDB were selected from different countries and organizations. Data were classified using FoodEx2 and INFOODS tagnames to harmonise the information. Hazard analysis and critical control points analysis was applied as the quality control method. Data were processed by spreadsheets and MySQL. S4H’s FCDB is composed of 880 elements, including nutrients and bioactive compounds. A total of 2648 unified foods were used to complete the missing values of the national FCDB used. Recipes and dishes were estimated following EuroFIR standards via linked tables. S4H’s FCDB will be part of the smartphone app developed in the framework of the Stance4Health European project, which will be used in different personalized nutrition intervention studies. S4H FCDB has great perspectives, being one of the most complete in terms of number of harmonized foods, nutrients and bioactive compounds included.

Serendipity or a Missed Chance? On the Interaction Between Vaccine Distribution and the EU Recovery Funds

In this article, we discuss the interaction between the Covid-19 vaccine rollout in EU member states and the effective use of grants and soft loans from the EU pandemic recovery fund. With some of the national spending plans for the Recovery Fund still awaiting initial submission (Bulgaria), others pending the Commission’s endorsement (Poland, Hungary) or formal Council’s approval (Romania, Estonia), and various other national plans in their implementation stage, the next challenge for policymakers will be to ensure that the initial and subsequent tranches of EU funds are released as economies reopen. We claim that special attention ought to be paid to Central and Eastern Europe, where some countries are lagging in their vaccine rollout and/or the preparation for their use of the EU recovery funds. This is likely to be an important test for EU institutions in determining the stability and coherence of the European project as a whole.

Accessibility in 360º Videos: Methodological Aspects and Main Results of Evaluation Activities in the ImAc Project

This article presents a global overview of the results of the evaluation activities performed in the European project Immersive Accessibility (ImAc), which investigated how access services can be integrated into 360º videos. More specifically, the paper presents the methodological approach in ImAc testing, and reports on the results of the evaluation activities on the tools (a subtitling editor, an audio description editor, a sign language editor, and an accessibility content manager), on the media player, and on the access services (subtitling, audio description, audio subtitling, and sign language interpreting).

Macron's “European Project”: Four Years Later (French Plans and the Realities of the European Union)

The initiatives of large-scale reforms of the European Union to accelerate European integration and to achieve “European sovereignty” were one of the main topics of the presidential program of E. Macron. For the first time in the political history of the Fifth Republic, the future head of state synchronized the implementation of internal reforms in France with an ambitious “European project”. The article analyzes the progress of the implementation of the European program of Macron and examines the reasons which have not allowed to achieve the implementation of the plans. The author summarizes the preliminary results of the European policy of Paris, holding that the French leader's European initiatives were unrealistic since they did not sufficiently take into account the current complex realities and contradictions of the European Union, as well as the past negative experience of France in promoting the idea of creating a “Europe-Power”. A forecast is made about a possible new version of Macron's “E

Labeling of Installed Heating Appliances in Residential Buildings: An Energy Labeling Methodology for Improving Consumers’ Awareness

In the EU 28, the installed heating appliance stock is quite old, with an actual replacement rate of 4%. This is directly reflected in the average efficiency of the installed heating systems, where around 60% of the stock is rated with an energy class of C or D (the lowest classes of the energy label scale). The European project HARP aims at raising consumers’ awareness of the planned replacement of their old and inefficient heating appliances with more efficient and renewable solutions. In this direction, an energy labeling methodology for old appliances has been developed to rate the installed stock before the introduction of the EU energy label. The methodology has been developed for space heating appliances and water heaters, targeting two types of users: end consumers and professional users. The validation considered about 4600 space heating appliances and 800 water heaters built between 1972 and 2019. Three heating appliances and two water heaters were tested in the laboratory, confirming the reliability of the proposed methodology. The expected impact of defining an energy labeling methodology for installed heating appliances increases the current replacement rate of these appliances in the EU from 4% to 5%.

Survival and Autonomy

The Balkan Wars of 1912–1913 and World War I shattered the social fabric of Ottoman Europe and led to a radical revision of the region’s political boundaries. How did experiences of successive traumas—expulsions, famine, disease, massacres, and new occupation regimes—shape Muslims’ understandings of the European project and their experiences within it? This chapter analyzes this catastrophic era from diverse Muslim perspectives. It reveals how many Muslims found legal promises of political equality and rights ambiguous and intangible, and instead sought to define their own terms of political belonging. They wanted autonomy, confessional sovereignty, and the protection of Islamic institutions and property.