After 100 years from its introduction in the treatment of allergic patients, regulatory aspects of allergen-specific immunotherapy (ASI) are still incompletely defined and very heterogeneous among different countries. To better understand the scenario of regulatory documents applying to ASI in Europe and their different compelling value, it might be useful, for pure didactic purposes of this ar...

In this statement of interest, we investigate opportunities to use a Linked Data approach in INSPIRE (Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe). We briefly present two typical use cases related to INSPIRE and identity the involved components, as well as their workflow. In a subsequent step, we analyze the potential of using Linked Data for each use case. We conclude with a discussion on...

Australia is one of the very few countries in the world that has relatively mature regional SDIs. This is largely due to its institutional context. This paper describes some of the main features of Australia’s institutional context and examines three data sharing partnership projects that have been developed in three Australian states. The last section discusses the relevance of the findings of...

This paper reports the findings of two studies on the socio-economic impacts of the regional spatial data infrastructures (SDIs) in Catalonia, and Lombardia, and then compares the developments in these two regions with those in other nine advanced regional SDIs to explore the extent to which the findings reported for the two detailed case-studies could be generalised. The significance of this p...

The Community strategy against pollution of surface water control policy was set out by the European Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC which lays down new procedures for the identification of substances and development of control measures. After the decision n° 2455/2001/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 November 2001 setting out the first list of 33 substances or groups...

According to the Regulation (EC) N. 141/2000 of the European Parliament and of the Council, rare diseases are life-threatening or chronically debilitating conditions, affecting no more than 5 in 10 000 persons in the European Community. It is estimated that between 6000 to 8000 distinct rare diseases affect up to 6% of the total EU population. Therefore, these conditions can be considered rare ...

INFOBIOMED is an European Network of Excellence (NoE) funded by the Information Society Directorate-General of the European Commission (EC). A consortium of European organizations from ten different countries is involved within the network. Four pilots, all related to linking clinical and genomic information, are being carried out. From an informatics perspective, various challenges, related to...

This article is offered to stimulate the formulation of a cross-Atlantic research agenda on access to geographic information. The article is organized in four sections. The first sets the context for the article. The second reviews at some length recent developments in Europe in relation to access to public sector information and the development of the Information Society. The geographic inform...