The NHECD consortium consists of the following partners:
Tel Aviv University (TAU) - Tel Aviv (IL)
Located in Israel's cultural, financial and industrial heartland, Tel Aviv University is the largest university in Israel and the biggest Jewish university in the world. It is a major center of teaching and research, comprising nine faculties, 106 departments, and 90 research institutes. Its origins go back to 1956, when three small education units - The Tel Aviv School of Law and Economics, an Institute of Natural Sciences, and an Institute of Jewish Studies - joined together to form the University of Tel Aviv. At first attached to the Tel Aviv municipality, the University was granted autonomy in 1963, and its campus in the residential section of Ramat Aviv was established the same year.
Tel Aviv University offers an extensive range of study programs in the arts and sciences, within its Faculties of Engineering, Exact Sciences, Life Sciences, Medicine, Humanities, Law, Social Sciences, Arts and Management. The original 170-acre campus has been expanded to include an additional 50-acre tract, now being developed. The University also maintains academic supervision over the Center for Technological Design in Holon, the New Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yaffo, and the Tel Aviv Engineering College.
About the Department of Industrial Engineering
The Faculty of Engineering, Tel-Aviv University was established in 1971. The Faculty trains the students in the fields of technology in general and particularly in high-tech, in order to participate in the economy and industry of Israel.
From traditional industry to managing large logistic chains, Hi-Tech companies, service organizations, "Start-ups" and large international companies, Israel 's international competitiveness depends on its ability to adopt modern "lean" manufacturing techniques and a systematic viewpoint. In the Department of Industrial Engineering, the faculty members are playing a crucial role in this effort, training students, interacting with the industry and conducting research in diverse areas that are vital for modern production and service capabilities.
Specific research areas in the Department include
At the cutting edge of industrial engineering research, the department members publish in leading research journals, take part in joint ventures with industry leaders and operate modern laboratories in computerized integrated systems, ERP and information technology. The developed methodologies, some very new in Israel, are taught at both the undergraduate and graduates levels.
Prof. Maimon's research group is responsible for Work Package 1 (WP1).
WP1 objectives are to provide the information technology infrastructure enabling to establish and maintain on an on-going basis an automated retrieval, indexing and extraction of relevant results from scientific publications in common electronic document formats. The data will be categorized as per special domain taxonomy specially designed by domain experts for efficient navigation by novice users. The framework will enable domain experts to comment the extracted results while considering the journal impact factor and the novelty of results. The repository will be designed considering harmonization with related data bases.
Tel Aviv University (TAU) - Tel Aviv (IL)
Dept of Physiology & Pharmacology
The Sackler Faculty of Medicine is Israel's largest institute of higher medical education. The Sackler School of Medicine, the Goldschleger School of Dental Medicine and the School of Health Professions offer first professional degrees. In addition, the Faculty's School of Continuing Medical Education provides continuing medical education. The Graduate School offers further research studies towards MSc and PhD degrees. Altogether, the Faculty includes approximately 1000 teachers in preclinical departments and in affiliated clinical departments and institutes, located in 7 major medical centers, six psychiatric hospitals, and a large rehabilitation center.
The TAU team led by Prof. Rafi Korenstein from the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine is involved in providing the knowledge in the domain of impact of nanoparticles on health by evaluating in-vivo and in-vitro scientific literature.
The research activity of Prof. Korenstein`s group addresses three lines of research:
Prof. Korenstein is the WP2 leader. With his team, Korenstein will be responsible for providing the necessary know-how for designing the taxonomy governing the database, for defining the criteria for selecting the documents that will be inserted in the database and creating an annotated training corpus of representative papers, in particular those ones dealing with health-related in-vitro and in-vivo studies, and of validating the quality the data-mining automated system.
Joint Research Centre (JRC) - Ispra (I)
The mission of the Institute for Health and Consumer Protection is to protect the interests and health of the consumer in the framework of EU legislation on chemicals, food, and consumer products by providing scientific and technical support including risk-benefit assessment and analysis of traceability.
The Institute for Health and Consumer Protection (IHCP) is one of the seven scientific institutes of the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission. It employs around 280 multi-disciplinary staff. Its role embraces the detection of genetically modified organisms (GMO) in food and feed, the assessment of risk from consumer products, chemical substances and environmental stressors in complex mixtures, testing methods alternative to the use of animals for experimental purposes as well as nanotechnologies.
Main users are European Commission Directorates-General (DGs), Member State authorities and standardisation bodies. IHCP works closely with the other JRC Institutes, collaborates with consumer associations and with a wide range of industrial partners, universities and research institutes in EU Member States and applicant countries.
The group of Francois Rossi will be involved in the tasks of WP2 concerning the definition of the taxonomy and review of relevant documents in particular related to regulatory, safety, environmental, and epidemiological aspects. Dr. Rossi will also lead the WP3 which deals with the supply and maintenance of the tools and infrastructure necessary to run the database. His group will be in charge of defining the requirements necessary for the GUI implementation, setting up the hardware and software systems, organizing the management structure and administration facilities to monitor the system status and maintaining regular check ups.
IVAM - Amsterdam (NL)
IVAM UVA
IVAM is an independent environmental and occupational health related research and consultancy institute which has its origins in the University of Amsterdam's Environmental Science and Chemistry Department. Three units form the core of IVAMs activities: the Chemical Risks (CR) unit, the unit Build Environment (with a division for Life Cycle Assessment) and the unit Sustainable Production and Consumption. The CR-unit, being the former 'Chemiewinkel - University of Amsterdam' merged with IVAM in 2002. The unit is active in risk assessment of chemicals in the environment, at the workplace and for consumers, assessment of the use and behavior of chemicals in products over the full production chain, the assessment of control measures, including substitution of harmful chemicals and products. In this unit nanotechnology has a central role. Methodologies applied are model development and application, literature study, practical workplace exposure measurements, questionnaires and interview techniques. IVAM is experienced in the design and organization of dissemination activities, workshops and conferences, training courses, development of training materials, compilation of manuals, handbooks, brochures, leaflets, developing websites and videos, focused on the specific knowledge and needs of different national and international stakeholders: i.e. governments and governmental organizations, industry and their branches, trade unions, environmental and consumer NGOs. IVAM maintains an active international network in these fields.
The group of van Broekhuizen is involved in the definition of the data base taxonomy and optimization of the data-mining process within WP2. Additionally, van Broekhuizen as WP4 leader will be in charge of the dissemination and networking activities with relevant stakeholders, of adapting the information provided by the data base to the needs of regulatory bodies and the general public. His group will be issuing on, the project public website, white papers on the NHECD activities and results
tp21 GmbH - Your technology partner for the 21st century - Saarbruecken (D)
is specialized in the design, planning and management of international interdisciplinary research and development projects. We offer support in the successful implementation of your research project, in technology transfer and in the exploitation of research results. tp21 assists companies in the take up of new technologies via mapping solution scenarios, searching for know-how required, supervising feasibility studies and searching for co-financing opportunities.
Conception and realization of scientific catalogues and web based platforms, organization of exhibitions, congresses and training activities are additional services of tp21. The company's staff has a scientific, medical and engineering background with a long-standing experience in technology transfer and innovation management.
In NHECD, tp21 is responsible for the work packages "Project Management" and contributes to the workpackage "Interaction with Stakeholders & Dissemination".
