Subterranean ecosystems host a broad diversity of specialized and endemic organisms that account for a unique fraction of the global taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional diversity. Furthermore, they deliver crucial nature’s contributions to people—especially the provisioning of potable water to more than half of the world’s population. Yet, these out-of-sight ecosystems are systematically overlooked in post-2020 biodiversity and climate change targets. Only 6.9% of known subterranean ecosystems overlap with the global network of protected areas, with just a few of these areas designed to account for their vertical dimension. Two main impediments are responsible for this lack of protection. First, subterranean biodiversity patterns remain largely unmapped, even in areas with a long speleological tradition such as Europe. Second, we lack a mechanistic understanding of subterranean species' response to human-induced perturbations. The project DarCo aims to map subterranean biodiversity patterns across Europe and develop an explicit plan to incorporate subterranean ecosystems in the European Union (EU) Biodiversity Strategy for 2030. To this end, we have established a multidisciplinary team of leading scientists in subterranean biology, macroecology, and conservation science from a broad range of European countries. The project is articulated in three interconnected work packages devoted to direct research (WP2–4), plus a fourth package (WP5) aimed at maximizing the dissemination of results and engagement of stakeholders to implement practical conservation. First, by compiling existing databases and leveraging a capillary network of international collaborators, we will gather distribution data, traits, and phylogenies for all major subterranean animal groups, including crustaceans, mollusks, insects, and vertebrates (WP2). These data will serve to predict species responses to human threats using Hierarchical Modelling of Species Communities (WP3). Models' predictions of biodiversity change will provide the basis for a first dynamic mapping of subterranean life in Europe. By intersecting maps of diversity patterns, threats, and protected areas, we will design a plan to protect subterranean biodiversity complementing the current EU network of protected areas (Natura 2000), while taking into account climate-driven shifts in subterranean ecoregions (WP4). Finally, through target activities in WP5, we seek to raise societal awareness about subterranean ecosystems and invite stakeholders to incorporate subterranean biodiversity in multilateral agreements. In compliance with the European Plan S, we will make all data open and re-usable by the development of a centralized and open database on subterranean life—the Subterranean Biodiversity Platform. This will ensure that future generations will be able to build upon knowledge accumulated on subterranean biodiversity and monitor the effectiveness of today’s protection measures in the years ahead.

The proposed project will bring together leading academic institutions and researchers, including scholars from the Pontifical Academy for Life, UNESCO, EthiMed (the network of Mediterranean Bioethicists), the Fondazione San Raffaele and the Catholic University of Leuven as well as leading practitioners in the field from Malta, the UK, the Republic of Ireland, Italy, France, Belgium and Holland. It will be addressing the critical issue of end of life treatment and, whilst repudiating euthanasia in all its forms, will examine the short comings of health care professionals, who at one extreme may be recommending extraordinary measures of nutrition, hydration and advanced life support systems at the very end of life and not accepting death as the inevitable outcome, and at the other extreme not even giving sufficient pain relief for those who need it for fear of hastening the patient's demise. There are morally acceptable guidelines, put forward by religious institutions including the Catholic Church, which can make the end of life more comfortable and which, indeed, can have a significant and disproportionate impact on the reduction of economic costs, although the latter is certainly not the main aim of the project.It is proposed that a curriculum framework and a complementary care protocol incorporating identified best practice from diverse jurisdictions throughout the European Union be developed and implemented in the fullest respect for ethical, moral, medical and socio-political considerations. A significant amount of analysis and research, networking, teaching and evaluation activities will be required to complement the research project as a whole. Due to the complexity of the relevant academic, medical, moral, ethical, legal and social issues involved, across the European Community, the project will definitely require as well close and continuous management of the deliverables in order to achieve the desired level of intellectual output. The project will also seek to identify effective training and political pathways for translating project outcomes into practice throughout the European Community.The summer school were received very well and one study carried out was published in the Journal of the Malta College of Family Doctors. There were requests for future summer schools both in Malta, where one has already been implemented (not funded) and also in L'Aquila where the two universities are searching means of funding. A Consensus Document was drawn but by the Bioethics Research Programme of the Faculty of Medicine in collaborations with the faculty of Laws and the Faculty of Theology. This described a protocol for end of life care taking into consideration the legal and moral dimensions. It was received well by the CEO of Mater Dei Hospital and a Hospital Ethics Committee is to be set up following this project. Also the Minister of Health took a keen interest and Prof. Mallia went to the Ministry to give a talk on the Project, in which the Minister promised to have th law reviewed in order to cover all that was proposed.A curriculum of the Summer School was compiled by Prof. Mallia and reviewed by the project team. This curriculum is international and aimed to help individual within an institution or ministry tackle specific problems in end of life. It includes pathways for implementationPathways were also a concern for developing or improving end of Life care and to provide training for both primary and secondary care; another pathway described the implementation and description of Advanced Care Planning.A curriculum for CPD of Magistrates was also made for the Malta context. Prof Mallia and the Dean of Laws are already involved in this CPD programme and end of life is considered important in view of any legal cases which arise due to the moral dimension not specified in the law.Position papers were published in renown journals. This is in the funal report submittted. Moreover the project has two books accepted by SPRINGER, one of which is in the GLOBAL ETHICS SERIES. The deadline for invited authors are the end of this year for one and MArch 2019 for the other.

CELTA: Convergence of Electronics and Photonics Technologies for Enabling Terahertz Applications aims to produce the next generation of researchers who will enable Europe to take a leading role in the multidisciplinary area of utilizing Terahertz technology for applications involving components and complete systems for sensing, instrumentation, imaging, spectroscopy, and communications. All these technologies are key to tackle important solutions in a large number of focus areas relevant for the societal challenges identified in the Horizon2020 work programme. To achieve this objective, CELTA is comprised of eleven leading research institutions and assembled a comprehensive research training programme for all the fifteen early stage researchers (ESRs). CELTA integrates multidisciplinary scientific expertise, complementary skills, and experience working in academia and industry to empower ESRs to work in interdisciplinary teams, integrate their activities, share expertise, and promote a vision of a converged co-design and common engineering language between electronics and photonics for Terahertz technologies. Therefore, CELTA will introduce the strategy of converged electronics and photonics co-design in its research program and makes a special effort on establishing a common engineering language in its training program across the electronics, photonics and applications disciplines. We believe this common engineering language and converged co-design is mandatory to make the next logical step towards efficient and innovation solutions that can reach the market. The detailed compendium of lectures on state-of-the art technology, soft skills and entrepreneurship is accompanied by a research programme that focuses on THz key technologies. CELTA ESRs will develop three demonstrators: beam steering technology for communication applications, a photonic vector analyser for spectroscopy and materials characterization, and a THz imager for sensing applications.

Recent reports state that the adoption of open-source software (OSS) helps, resulting in savings of about $60 billion per year to consumers. However, the use of OSS also comes at enormous cost: choosing among OSS projects and maintaining dependence on continuously changing software requires a large investment. Deciding if an OSS project meets the required standards for adoption is hard, and keeping up-to-date with an evolving project is even harder. It involves analysing code, documentation, online discussions, and issue trackers. There is too much information to process manually and it is common that uninformed decisions have to be made with detrimental effects. CROSSMINER remedies this by automatically extracting the required knowledge and injecting it into the IDE of the developers, at the time they need it to make their design decisions. This allows them to reduce their effort in knowledge acquisition and to increase the quality of their code. CROSSMINER uniquely combines advanced software project analys

The project idea is focusing on AI-augmented automation supporting modeling, coding, testing, and monitoring as part of a continuous development in Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs). The growing complexity of CPS poses several challenges throughout all software development and analysis phases, but also during their usage and maintenance. Many leading companies have started envisaging the automation of tomorrow to be brought about by Artificial Intelligence (AI) tech. While the number of companies that invest significant resources in software development is constantly increasing, the use of AI in the development and design techniques is still immature. The project targets the development of a model-based framework to support teams during the automated continuous development of CPSs by means of integrated AI-augmented solutions. The overall AIDOaRT infrastructure will work with existing data sources, including traditional IT monitoring, log events, along with software models and measurements. The infrastructure is intended to operate within the DevOps process combining software development and information technology (IT) operations. Moreover, AI technological innovations have to ensure that systems are designed responsibly and contribute to our trust in their behaviour (i.e., requiring both accountability and explainability). AIDOaRT aims to impact organizations where continuous deployment and operations management are standard operating procedures. DevOps teams may use the AIDOaRT framework to analyze event streams in real-time and historical data, extract meaningful insights from events for continuous improvement, drive faster deployments and better collaboration, and reduce downtime with proactive detection.