The European Committee for Standardization (CEN, French: Comité Européen de Normalisation) is a public standards organization whose mission is to foster the economy of the European Single Market and the wider European continent in global trading, the welfare of European citizens and the environment by providing an efficient infrastructure to interested parties for the development, maintenance and distribution of coherent sets of standards and specifications.The CEN was founded in 1961. Its thirty-four national members work together to develop European Standards (ENs) in various sectors to build a European internal market for goods and services and to position Europe in the global economy. CEN is officially recognized as a European standards body by the European Union, European Free Trade Association and the United Kingdom; the other official European standards bodies are the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC) and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI).More than 60,000 technical experts as well as business federations, consumer and other societal interest organizations are involved in the CEN network that reaches over 460 million people. CEN is the officially recognized standardization representative for sectors other than electrotechnical (CENELEC) and telecommunications (ETSI). On 12 February 1999, the European Parliament noted in a resolution that CEN, CENELEC and ETSI co-operate smoothly and that a merger of the three standardization bodies would not have clear advantages.The standardization bodies of the thirty national members represent the twenty seven member states of the European Union, three countries of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), the United Kingdom and other countries that are highly integrated into the European economy. CEN is contributing to the objectives of the European Union and European Economic Area with technical standards (EN standards) which promote free trade, the safety of workers and consumers, interoperability of networks, environmental protection, exploitation of research and development programmes, and public procurement. An example of harmonized standards are those for materials and products used in construction and listed under the Construction Products Directive. The CE mark is a declaration by the manufacturer that a product complies with all relevant EU directives.CEN (together with CENELEC) owns the Keymark, a voluntary quality mark for products and services. A product bearing the Keymark demonstrates conformity to European Standards.
The Arctic is among the most rapidly warming regions on Earth, and climate change has triggered widespread alterations to its cryosphere and ecosystems. Among these, high Arctic lakes are highly sensitive to rising temperatures due to the influence of ice cover on multiple limnological processes. Here, we studied the sediments of three lakes on northern Ellesmere Island (82.6°N), at the terrestrial limit of the Last Ice Area, to produce records of past environmental change. The colonization of the lakes by diatoms, as well as subsequent diversification and the appearance of planktonic forms, marked important ecological shifts due to warming temperatures and lengthening ice-free periods. A subsequent meta-analysis of 25 circumpolar diatom records revealed compositional shifts that paralleled those of temperature, including a notable acceleration since the turn of the twenty-first century that eclipses shifts previously observed since the mid-nineteenth century. Projections for sustained amplified warming imply that the accelerating changes we observed are likely to continue, as rising temperatures and lengthening ice-free seasons push Arctic lakes across further ecological thresholds.
Constraining the timing of glacial advances and retreats is crucial for understanding paleoclimate and forecasting future trends. While the retreat of the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula ice sheet since the Last Glacial Maximum (ca. 26-19 ka) is relatively well-documented, the Neoglacial period (ca. 4 to 0.2 ka), primarily represented by moraine and lacustrine records, remains poorly constrained. In this study, we compiled a nonexhaustive list of potentially datable, fresh-looking moraines located near active glaciers along Marguerite Bay, the largest bay in the Western Antarctic Peninsula. Subsequently, we utilised 10Be Terrestrial Cosmogenic Nuclide (TCN) surface exposure dating on three moraine complexes adjacent to three distinct glaciers: the Shoesmith and Erin & ccedil; moraines on Horseshoe Island and the Erol Moraine on the Calmette Peninsula. The results from boulders, cobbles, and pebbles (n = 9) of the Shoesmith lateral moraine yielded a mean exposure age of 496 +/- 79 years, coinciding with the Little Ice Age (LIA) in the Northern Hemisphere and marking the end of the Neoglacial period. The boulders (n = 4) collected from the right lateral moraine of the Erin & ccedil; Glacier, which consists of several recessional ridges, are challenging to interpret owing to significant age scatter. Multiple scenarios indicate a late Neoglacial advance with an error-weighted mean landform age of 1163 +/- 403 years. We also tentatively attribute the formation of the undated innermost moraine ridge, located just a few tens of metres from the current glacier front, to the LIA. The moraine boulders (n = 3) collected from the youngest end moraine of the Erol Glacier exhibit significant inheritance, with unusually high ages ranging from ca. 2 to 10 ka. This is likely due to limited subglacial erosion of boulders and/or short supraglacial transport, which do not permit the zeroing of previously accumulated nuclides. Nevertheless, the cross-cutting relationships between the Erol Moraine that overlie previously OSL- and 10Be-TCN-dated raised beaches indicate its formation during the LIA advance. We also highlight the complexities associated with asynchronous moraine formation and inheritance in glacial boulders that experience low rates of erosion. Overall, our data refine the chronology of the late Neoglacial period on the Western Antarctic Peninsula, highlighting the significance of the LIA in a region where its timing and duration had previously remained unclear.
In Alzheimer’s disease, the spread of aberrantly phosphorylated tau is an important criterion in the Braak staging of disease severity and correlates with disease symptomatology. Here, we report the results of TANGO ( NCT03352557 ), a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group and multiple-dose long-term trial of gosuranemab—a monoclonal antibody to N-terminal tau—in patients with early Alzheimer’s disease. The primary objective was to assess the safety and tolerability of gosuranemab compared to placebo. The secondary objectives were to assess the efficacy of multiple doses of gosuranemab in slowing cognitive and functional impairment (using the Clinical Dementia Rating Scale Sum of Boxes (CDR-SB) scores at week 78) and evaluate the immunogenicity of gosuranemab (using the incidence of anti-gosuranemab antibody responses). Participants were randomized ( n = 654); received ( n = 650) low-dose (125 mg once every 4 weeks (q4w), n = 58; 375 mg q12w, n = 58), intermediate-dose (600 mg q4w, n = 106) or high-dose (2,000 mg q4w, n = 214) gosuranemab or placebo (q4w, n = 214) intravenously for 78 weeks; and assigned to cerebrospinal fluid ( n = 327) and/or tau positron emission tomography ( n = 357) biomarker substudies. Gosuranemab had an acceptable safety profile and was generally well tolerated (incidence of serious adverse events: placebo, 12.1%; low dose, 10.3%; intermediate dose, 12.3%; high dose, 11.7%). The incidence of treatment-emergent gosuranemab antibody responses was low at all time points. No significant effects were identified in cognitive and functional tests as no dose resulted in a favorable change from the baseline CDR-SB score at week 78 compared to placebo control (adjusted mean change: placebo, 1.85; low dose, 2.20; intermediate dose, 2.24; high dose, 1.85). At week 76, all doses caused significant ( P < 0.0001) reductions in the cerebrospinal fluid levels of unbound N-terminal tau compared to placebo.
Rapid warming in the High Arctic has induced changes in terrestrial environments that have included major recent shifts in lakes and ponds. Numerous studies exist of spatial trends in water chemistry, bioindicator groups, and paleoenvironmental change from High Arctic lakes; however, little is known about lake thermal stratification regimes at high latitudes beyond assumptions based on generalized classification schemes. Here, we report on the presence in late July 2022 of positive thermal stratification during open-water conditions in two freshwater lakes near Clements Markham Inlet, on northern Ellesmere Island. These lakes are situated in the polar desert at 82.6°N, >1000 km north of the generally accepted northern limit of summer thermal stratification. Given their location approaching the northernmost land on Earth, the thermal profiles of these lakes suggest that the occurrence of summer stratification may no longer be discounted anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere.
