Most of the hurdles were either of technical nature (eg, lack of harmonisation of data sets) or organisational nature (eg, tight deadlines, burdensome procedures for data retrieval, lack of human resources).
National and international harmonisation of data and sample collection will achieve required statistical power.
Despite harmonisation in data collection, cultural understanding and differences in reporting may threaten (cross-national) validity of the GALI.
Integration of these borrowed concepts and practices reshape the frameworks of the adopting discipline or field; which might, for example, facilitate harmonisation and data sharing.
Having these methods standardised and documented is also extremely important to allow comparability and potential harmonisation of data with other studies.
To fully realise and explore the harmonisation of data handling regarding RT-QPCR assays requires collaborative efforts between scientists that routinely conduct the assays and can define the problem, and statisticians that can suggest the optimal approach.
A detailed description of HELENA-cross-sectional study (HELENA-CSS) in terms of sampling and recruitment approaches, standardisation and harmonisation processes, data collection, analysis strategies and quality-control activities has been published elsewhere (Moreno et al., 2008).
Kelly (1987) and Poulain (1999), for example, have used the information contained in this matrix to assess the degree of harmonisation amongst reported data.
The development of data harmonisation tools, decision-support systems, visualisation and simulation tools for specific environmental thematic domains is challenging.
A main task of the INSPIRE programme is to enable interoperability and, when feasible, harmonisation of spatial data sets and services within Europe.
