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communitybased smart city digital twin platform for optimised drm operations and enhanced community disaster resilience
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pantheon will design and develop a community based digital ecosystem for disaster resilience utilising smart city digital twin scdt technology and leveraging new and emerging technologies and innovations to improve risk assessment reduce vulnerability and building community disaster resilience the aim is to enhance the operational capabilities of cbdrm community based drm teams by a community based smart city digital twin environment with components used for simulations training and evaluation of the behaviour of subsystems threats and human factor an early detection and situational awareness environment enabling authorities and fr and sr first and second even in complex remote and demanding locations an integrated intelligent subsystem by the utilization collaborative sensing from earth observations and swarms of uavs optimized to autonomously perform uavassisted operations throughout all disaster phases pantheon platform and technologies will be combined with iot infrastructure multisource data satellite and in situ data social networks historical data to create a tool for assessment of risks vulnerability and capacity assessment disseminate and inform decision makers and the public for risks during disasters engage citizens and stakeholders in the disaster resilience building and share knowledge and best practices identify vulnerabilities and implement policies strategies and plans to eliminate future disaster costs enhance collaboration among people at the local level promote the conduct of comprehensive surveys on multihazard disaster risks and the development of regional disaster risk assessments and maps including climate change scenarios promote and enhance through international cooperation including technology transfer access to and the sharing and use of nonsensitive data and information scdt will enable collective community behavior into the assessments of exposure to urban multihazards across time and space
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meshelectronics for nextgeneration skin tissue engineering
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the biokin project aims to engineer a biomimetic in vitro platform for the nondestructive remote and realtime monitoring of laboratorygrown skin the project is focused on developing a seamless device to interface with bioengineered skin tissue strategies will be established to integrate the device with skin cells to mature hybrid functional skin where electronics and tissue grow alike the obtained hybrid functional tissue will provide a powerful tool to study skin biological processes which will be used early by monitoring wound healing in vitro every year over 50 million patients suffer from severe skin injuries such as burns and chronic wounds and need effective therapies to restore skin function fueled by this need researchers have developed advanced skin substitutes for skin regeneration and replacement by tissue engineering techniques despite the incremental improvement of bioengineered skin and its use to regenerate damaged injuries in situ nondestructive and realtime monitoring of their performance has not been sufficiently addressed biokin will equip bioengineered skin tissue with advanced nonbiological capabilities thus providing a promising platform that supports the understanding of epidermal biology tissue formation and skin diseases the multidisciplinary skills gained during this action biokin will significantly enhance the applicants future career prospects in bringing bioelectronics to skin tissue engineering
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development of novel 3d vascularized cardiac models to investigate coronary microvascular disease
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coronary microvascular disease cmd is a significant healthcare challenge contributing to ischemic heart disease the number one global cause of human mortality cmd is associated with dysfunction of small coronary vessels due to ageing obesity and metabolic disease that reduces blood flow and oxygenation in the heart despite its widespread impact on health our understanding is limited to animal studies which do not recapitulate the pathophysiology in humans nor can they be used to reveal cellular crosstalk in a controlled manner thus there is a critical need to develop a humanized in vitro model to mimic cmd advances in organonchip and induced pluripotent stem cell ipsc technologies together with our stateoftheart 3d humanized vascular models provide new opportunities to investigate cmd 3dvascmd builds on our expertise to develop a complex vascularized cardiac model to reveal pathological mechanisms and novel therapeutic targets of cmd by combining cuttingedge tissueengineering approaches we will 1 develop and characterize a 3d vascularized cardiac model 2 determine the impact of known risk factors on the pathophysiology of cmd 3 develop a highthroughput system for cardiovascular drug screening our model will reveal cardiac tissuevessel crosstalk by combining autologouslydifferentiated ipscs in a controlled fluidic environment this model will enable unprecedented study of ischemia diabetes and sexhormone contributions to cmd using 3d in vitro tissues ultimately a highthroughput version of our model combined with machine learning will predict the efficacy of therapeutic targetsusing an interdisciplinary approach 3dvascmd will impact our understanding of how microenvironmental and heritable riskfactors contribute to cmd this model has the potential to study multiple facets of vascular disease and can be further developed into a preclinical tool which will be a breakthrough for cardiovascular biology and medicine
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the philosophy of experiential artifacts
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ancient greeks used one word techne to designate both technical and artistic practices it is only in modern times that art gained autonomy becoming the object of one philosophical discipline aesthetics however the emergence of mass media and then of digital media has brought art close to technology challenging its autonomy in this situation some basic philosophical questions about art regain centrality why art what is art for what is the role of art in a technological society like ours the traditional answer stresses the uniqueness of art pointing to the essential difference between artworks and technical artifacts the increasing interchange between art and technology however encourages us to question this statement pursuing an alternative strategy the hypothesis is that artworks belong to a technical kind which has been overlooked so far the kind of experiential artifacts whose function consists in triggering experiences art is severed from technology only if one focuses on artifacts such as drills or lathes whose function consists in producing concrete effects yet once experiential artifacts have been recognized one can fruitfully connect art to technology rethinking forms of art as techniques for generating different types of experiences the pea project launches the philosophy of experiential artifacts as a new area of inquiry in which the relationship between art and technology can be properly theorized thereby offering a new conceptual toolbox for historical and empirical research this will be done through a fourfold methodology in which aesthetics and the philosophy of mind analyze the experiences that experiential artifacts are meant to trigger while metaphysics and the philosophy of technology investigate the structure in virtue of which they perform this function pea will thus reconceptualize artworks as technical artifacts that we value for the way in which they enable us to enrich share and coordinate our experiences
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the praxis of coexistence a comparative and inductive approach to the challenges of diversity
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the world is experiencing what many have described as a crisis of multiculturalism over the past decade growing and increasingly mainstream voices have declared multiculturalism to have failed in such places as europe the united states india israel to name a few in view of growing concerns over the ineffectiveness of current coexistence policies and brewing ethnoreligious conflicts this research program will address this issue by taking a comparative approach to the question of ethnoreligious coexistence in multiple sites by examining cases of ordinary coexistence in situations of religious and ethnic diversity the research seeks to understand how coexistence is actually practiced the praxis of coexistence seeks to open an entirely new empirical inductive and comparative line of inquiry that does not seek to examine the effects of different policies on coexistence but rather looks at coexistence practices to among other things achieve better policy understanding how people handle diversity spontaneously will enlighten us about what they expect what they are looking for in coexistence i ask how do communities accommodate difference in spontaneous and culturally resonant ways what resources do they actually draw on to maintain civil relations and avoid conflict and violence between the different religious and ethnic groups that cohabit the same space this project will open theoretical and normative space for a broader range of approaches to coexistence ones that are attuned to questions of deep difference divergent worldviews and diverse values in contrast to studies on the effects of policy or structural conditions on the dynamics of coexistence this project will demonstrate why we should also take culture and existing practice seriously when considering the dilemmas of diversity
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clear cell envelope antibacterials
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the discovery of penicillin initiated the antibiotic era and saved millions from dying of lifethreatening bacterial infections such as tuberculosis sepsis and pneumonia penicillin kills bacteria by inhibiting synthesis of peptidoglycan an important structure of the bacterial cell envelope still today antibiotics targeting the bacterial cell envelope are the most widely used antibiotics in the world unfortunately resistance to these superior antibiotics is becoming highly prevalent and antibioticresistant bacteria represent one of the greatest threats to human health and development today in the clear cell envelope antibacterials training network worldleading researchers from academia have gathered with clinicians and 4 highly relevant sme partners to train a new generation of excellent european scientists in finding novel solutions for targeting the cell envelope of bacteria who know how findings in academia generate assets to smes and who could bring novel antimicrobial solutions to the market the proposed research program builds on unique findings of the project partners that allow us to take up innovative and yet feasible approaches 1 to identify novel targets in the cell envelope and to evaluate the lead structure potential of novel agents acting on the cell envelope 2 to resensitize resistant bacteria to existing cell wall antibiotics 3 and to explore novel therapies acting via the cell envelope impacts of this proposal are the reuse of safe and cheap antibiotics and the drugs already approved for treatment of other diseases as novel antimicrobials the training program combines a broad range of scientific disciplines such as molecular biology biochemistry structural biology screening technologies preclinical testing with complementary courses in innovation market potential and business strategies ensuring that the 10 phds will be highly competitive for both top european research institutions and the pharmabiotech job market
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cellular and molecular mechanisms of pancreatic betacell adaptation to pregnancy in large mammals
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pregnancy is characterized by the development of maternal insulin resistance and increased hepatic glucose production to provide sufficient glucose to be used as nutrient by the developing fetus the maternal insulinproducing betacells expand to counterbalance the increased glucose levels and failure of this process can lead to development of gestational diabetes which has great health implications for both the mother and the developing fetus yet our knowledge on the mechanisms behind the pregnancyinduced betacell expansion in humans is limited to address this knowledge gap in the betappreg project i will use the pig model as an ideal surrogate large mammal to study the mechanisms and identify physiological drivers of pregnancyinduced betacell expansion first i will identify the extent and the different cellular mechanisms of betacell adaptation in the porcine pancreas over the three trimesters of gestational time 114 days by histological analysis to reveal the physiological candidates of betacell adaptation i will perform untargeted metabolomics coupled with proteomics analysis of serum and pancreas at sequential temporal windows during gestation this analysis will point to the significantly changed metabolites and growth factors that can be potentially involved in betacell expansion i will perform a smallscale metabolitegrowth factor screen in isolated neonatal porcine islets with the most regulated factors to causatively link the metabolitesgrowth factors stimulating betacell expansion the most promising candidates will be then tested in isolated human islets and humanderived ductal organoids to assess their translational potential as betacell proliferationdifferentiation inducers and human therapeutics overall the proposed project will greatly advance our understanding of betacell adaptation during pregnancy in large mammals and provide novel therapeutic candidates for gestational diabetes treatment
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interdisciplinary marie skodowskacurie action for health
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the last decades are characterised by great breakthroughs in the understanding diagnosing and treating of many diseases as fields advance researchers are increasingly challenged to merge domains in order to tackle complex healthrelated societal issues thus the next generation of researchers require strong collaboration skills and abilities to integrate knowledge from other disciplines into their research efforts despite this formalised interdisciplinary research training falls short interact is an interdisciplinary doctoral programme with the goal of inspiring and enabling fellows working seamless across stem disciplines to advance health solutions in the fields of cancer and neurological diseases fellows will work on original phd projects bridging across biologybiomedicine to chemistry physics or engineering we will also include science didactic research on interdisciplinary education at graduate level interacts main goals are 1 to create a model for structured convergence science training in denmark 2 to discover methodologies and approaches supporting interdisciplinary stem research and 3 to nurture fellows entrepreneurial and transversal skills important for their future intersectoral career optionswe will recruit 66 international fellows over three cohorts at two implementing partner organizations the university of copenhagen and the technical university of denmark ensuring fellow diversity through unbiased transparent and meritbased selection selected fellows will be jointly supervised by an interdisciplinary supervisor team will undertake international secondments obtain transferable skills training and career activities provided by othersector partners interact will be one of the first european doctoral programmes on convergence science strengthening europes role at the forefront of interdisciplinary and intersectoral research training with potential to solve complex unmet health needs
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emotional dynamics of protective policies in an age of insecurity
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protemo investigates the emotional connection between the state and individuals the focus is on protective policies and their consequences for individuals groups of citizens and noncitizens as well as for democracy political participation and mobilisation such policies and the emotional dynamics related to them increasingly dominate politics in the current age of insecurity fear anger pride and hope are only some of the emotions that are often involved in political interactions and sometimes with important consequences as events such as the yellow vest protests illustrate protemo asks 1 how do political actors perceive and influence the emotional needs of citizens and noncitizens and how does this play out in the policy process 2 what emotional reactions judgements and actions elicit protective policies among individuals and publics in society 3 how do citizens emotional reactions feed back on the policy process answering these questions allows us to study emotional responsiveness a crucial yet neglected aspect of representative democracyto do so we will field a representative survey of 11 countries design experiments make focused comparisons of a smaller range of specific policies eg pandemic responses climate change and conduct several deep dives where we investigate how underprivileged citizens migrant women of color and refugees from ukraine form emotional needs towards protection and build discursive spaces to articulate them in the public sphere bringing together perceptions of emotions by political actors and emotional reactions of citizens and noncitizens to protective policies with an analysis of the emotionality of the policy process toward protective policies allows us to contribute to a broader debate on the future of representative democracy and affective citizenship protemos results will lead to improved eu policymaking and enhanced communication of evidencebased policies
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personalised blueprint intestinal health
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the miguthealth consortium aims to develop a personalized blueprint of intestinal health to predict and prevent inflammatory bowel disease the overall goal is to deliver interdisciplinary solutions molecular nutritional ehealth and patient engagementempowerment level for health promotion and disease prevention that would enable active patient engagement in health and selfcare management taking on this mission miguthealth pursues the following strategic goals to integrate stateoftheart omics molecular clinical nutrition social and environmental for identification of actionable biomarkers risk and health promoting factors linked to healthtodisease transition in the general population ibd high risk persons as well as ibd patients to perform systemslevel analyses of chronic inflammation by applying integrative models from omics and clinical data to predict risk for healthtodisease transition in ibd to perform a proofofconcept controlled clinical trial studying a nutrient elimination diet here glutenfree diet and its impact on intestinal inflammation in ibd patients and highrisk individuals to exploit the impact of microbiomederived dietassociated metabolites on gut inflammation reversion and restoration of barrier integrity and function using an innovative coculture system of primary human intestinal organoids and sorted immune cell subsets to develop and apply novel technologies sensors mobile apps to dynamically monitor individual nutrition as well as physical activity and principal health status to implement a patientcentered approach for personalized health and selfcare engagement targeted at ibd patients individuals at risk for ibd and the general population as well as tools for healthcare professionals
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plasmodium exploitation of liverspecific methionine metabolism
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malaria remains the most serious parasitic infectious disease killing one child every two minutes plasmodium infection starts when the female anopheles mosquito injects sporozoites into the skin of the vertebrate host all plasmodium species go through a phase of replication inside nucleated cells prior to infecting red blood cells and causing malaria however only mammalianinfectious parasites target the liver and replicate inside hepatocytes at an extraordinary rate to generate tens of thousands of erythrocyteinfectious merozoites avian and reptile malaria parasites in contrast infect macrophages near the bite site and differentiate into only dozens of erythrocyteinfectious merozoites the reason behind the high replication rate achieved by mammalianinfectious parasites inside hepatocytes key to guarantee the establishment of infection by overcoming the bottleneck of malaria transmission caused by a low sporozoite inoculum remains utterly unexplored the hypothesizes of this proposal is that the explanation for this lies in the uniqueness of the mammalian hepatic methionine metabolism bestowed by the mammalian liverspecific methionine adenosyltransferase mat1 enzyme and its capacity for generating unlimited amounts of sadenosylmethionine in agreement with this hypothesis preliminary data show that plasmodiums high replication rate inside hepatocytes relies on the host liverspecific mat1 by using a combination of genetic cellular and molecular approaches i will decipher how the liverspecific methionine metabolism present in hepatocytes is hijacked and used by the parasite to achieve such high replication rates and assess the competence of the liverspecific mat1 in sustaining plasmodium replication this proposal has the potential to establish a novel paradigm on how the environment and the resources provided by the host have evolutionarily influenced plasmodiums life cycle and will pave the way for new therapeutic targets against malaria
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lower thz radio propagation channel sounding parameter estimation and modeling towards 6g and beyond
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the new lower thz band from 100 ghz to 1 thz is considered as a candidate for 6g and beyond systems towards 2030 that require even larger system bandwidths as wireless systems must be designed with constraints set by the radio propagation channels understanding the lower thz channel characteristics is essential for realistic system design and performance analysis of communication positioning and sensing operating at this band however they are almost remaining unknown with a few works reported due to challenges in channel sounder development lowcost highresolution parameter estimation hrpe and establishing comprehensive and realistic 6gcompatible channel models the applicant will address these challenges with professor fredrik tufvesson a worldleading researcher in channel measurements and characterization at the host lund university the applicant collaborating with experts in the host and secondment groups will introduce basic theory and technology breakthroughs to explore the new lower thz band which include 1 a novel realtime channel sounder 2 a generic hrpe algorithm and 3 spatially consistent channel models the project will result in at least four peerreviewed journal papers four conference papers and related presentations and other broader dissemination communication and exploitation activitiesundertaking the formal research and training activities the applicant will achieve an excellent scientific profile in radio propagation experienced skills in teaching supervision fundraising and management and enhanced research network this enables him to develop into an independent and leading researcher and realize his career plan within academia the project also contributes to europes digital decade a vision and avenues presented by the commission in march 2021 for europes digital transformation by 2030 by facilitating an efficient lowcost credible better and timely development of 6g and beyond wireless systems
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automated synthesis of stochastic cyberphysical systems a robust approach
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cyberphysical systems cps are complex systems with tight interactions between cyber elements and physical components the cyber elements are control algorithms implemented by computerbased software developing the embedded control software for cps is currently ad hoc and errorprone which has created costly undesired behaviours particularly in safetycritical applications examples of such undesired behaviours include frequency deviation in power networks causing outages or blackouts eg in jan 2021 in eu affecting 200k households crash of airplanes due to software bugs boeing 737 max costs 159 billion euros or autonomous cars having software bugs toyota recalled 65000 cars in 2015 nowadays most of the costs of cps design is spent on ensuring that the system meets all the requirements especially when it is working in uncertain conditions in order to design reliable cps and to reduce the costs of such a design i propose a novel robust synthesis approach that computes automatically the control software from highlevel requirements this novel approach creates a paradigm shift in cps design as it computes control software in a pushbutton manner and eliminates timeconsuming costly postvalidation steps the approach tackles the cps complexity by developing new abstraction techniques that are compositional and robust to model uncertainties which will be integrated in a unified framework for automating the design of the control software this synthesis paradigm is founded on novel compositional similarity relations with coupled uncertainties and coupled computations on abstract models my project is highrisk because it requires merging and rethinking different design methodologies from multiple disciplines including control theory computer science and probability theory it is highgain since it will transform the design principles of cps to enable designing largescale yet reliable and safe cps working autonomously in uncertain conditions
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comprehending human action using social networks
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this proposal consists of three interconnected projects that study how social networks shape the behavior of 1 scientists 2 politicians and 3 citizens by using the structure of networks for identificationthe first project investigates how social media networks shape knowledge production in academia through a comprehensive dataset of economists and their twitter activity the project provides insights into the information acquisition process of scientists and how scientists networks impact the direction of science the project will examine the causal effect of social media usage on research output collaboration citation patterns and careers moreover the project will highlight inefficiencies in the scientific process that arise through scientific fads and herd behaviorthe second project will generate some of the first largescale empirical analyses of the role of congressional staffers in the policymaking process based on comprehensive data on congressional staffers their networks and the activities of congress members the project will generate pathbreaking insights into the impact of staffers on congressional voting behavior as well as policy priorities the project will isolate the effect of staffers using a networkbased identification strategy that leverages the educational ties of staffers in this way the research project will break new ground in the field of political economy by opening the black box of the policymaking processthe third project focuses on the political effects of social media and the effectiveness of algorithmic interventions by investigating the impact of sharing limits on the social media platform whatsapp the project will analyze how this change to information flows on a network affects conflict events believes and election results in the worlds largest democracy india the research project thereby addresses a gap in the field of social media research by shedding light on an oftenproposed policy intervention
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the molecular and developmental bases of iridescent feathers
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iridescent structural colors produce some of the most vibrant colors in nature particularly in birds such as throats of many hummingbirds these colors are produced by interactions between light and organic structures such that optical effects from the nanoscale arrangement of melanincontaining organelles called melanosomes within bird feather barbules produces color variation uniquely to birds these melanosomes can take four distinct forms i rods rodshaped and solid ii hollow rods rodshaped and hollow iii platelets flat and solid and iv hollow platelets flat and hollow while their importance for production of colour variation is well explored how these unusual melanosomes form during feather development in nearly unknown in the molecular and developmental bases of iridescent feathers project modeif project i propose a developmental genetics approach to identify developmental and molecular pathways by which melanosomes achieve hollowness and flatness to explore hollowness i will test two hypotheses the phaeomelanincore hypothesis and the airfilledcore hypothesis to explore flatness i will test the hypothesis that the premelanosome structural organizational gene pmel enables the development of flat melanosomes by providing scaffolding for pigment deposition comparative transcriptomics and concurrent elucidation of the physical processes via electron microscopy will greatly improve our understanding of the mechanisms of development of these unusual melanosomes finally i will focus on whether melanosome shape and nanostructuring are developmentally constrained for other colors once a species evolves iridescent coloration understanding the molecular basis of iridescent feather development is vital for comprehending its evolution furthermore insights into melanosomes optical packing could inspire innovative synthetic color production techniques
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minimally invasive endoscopes for neuronal activity monimagingassisted singlecell specific activity monitoring and optogenetic stimulation of deep brain structures in motile and awaken animal models
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severe neuronal disorders such as dementia affect more than 1 billion people globally and account for economic burden far exceeding that of cancer our only chance of treating dementia is improving our understanding of how brains function at diverse levels of complexity this will only be possible through better technologies which already reflects in synchronised actions worldwide such as the us brain initiative and eu human brain project the origin erc project lifegate has developed minimally invasive hairthin endoscopes for advanced applications in neuroscience and brought about a solid route to their commercial outreach the instruments rely on stateoftheart digital holographic methods combined with highperformance computing they offer uniquely detailed observations in unprecedented depths of living yet anaesthetized animal models making them particularly suitable to studies of connectivity of neuronal cells inside their natural environment this proposal entitled wokegate represents a powerful extension of this concept enabling imaginginformed singlecell specific activity monitoring and control of deep neuronal circuits in fully awake and behaving animals the prospect is centred around a novel m3cf fibre probes which emerged within the origin erc project lifegate outside its proposed research agenda the project aims for i necessary technological amendments to incorporate this opportunity into the holographic endoscope geometries ii a direct verification of this prospect in invivo studies through the network of existing research partners and iii paving the way for commercial translation of such empowered scientific instrumentation successful acquisition and execution of the wokegate will enable future perspectives of this promising technology through new opportunities such as the eic accelerator grant
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advanced engineering of nitric oxide based therapeutics for triple negative breast cancer training network
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nocancernet will focus on triple negative breast cancer tnbc and nitric oxide norelated therapeutic development tnbc accounts for 1020 breast cancers and is characterised by diagnosis at an early age and an aggressive phenotype it indeed develops incurable distant metastasis within the first 23 years in approximately 30 patients despite significant efforts tnbc treatment is limited to surgery and chemotherapy laying bare the urgent need for new targeted therapeutic development our network has demonstrated an important role for inducible nitric oxide synthase inos and no signalling in tnbc metastatic progression with efficacy of inos targeting demonstrated in a phase iii clinical trial of patients with distant metastasis based on nos yinyang effect on tumour biology inosno system can be targeted by either inhibiting inos and reducing the physiological levels of no which drive tumour progression or vice versa using no donating drugs to increase no to tumouricidal levels similar to immune cells nomediated tumour targeting the nocancernet doctoral network dn addresses two fundamental gaps in european training 1 a network where a core of doctoral candidates dcs can share a basic understanding of molecular target discovery models of tumour biology assessment drug synthesis and delivery developing diagnostics handling complex spatial imaging and omics expression data profiles and 2 solid interdisciplinary training in experimental computational and clinical research nocancernet will equip our dcs to understand the complexities of bench to bedside cancer research the importance of an interdisciplinary approach and an understanding of the fundamentals of related disciplines this will be of great importance in preparing dcs to work between academia industry and in clinical healthcare providers
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investigating the functional roles of histone acylation cooccurrence on transcription in singlecells
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regulation of transcription is orchestrated by a complex combination of histone posttranslational modifications ptms but how their cooccurrence in the same cell regulate gene expression is still poorly understood recently novel histone acylations have been identified namely propionylation pr and butyrylation bu they coexist with acetylation ac arise from cellular metabolism and are key candidates to finetune chromatin activity and transcription this project will answer fundamental questions on the role of acylations in gene regulation and their cooccurrence in single cells and provide novel insights into metabolic disorders propionic acidemia pa where histone acylations are alteredthrough this project i will generate the first genomewide histone acylation map in single cells functionally link their cooccurrence with gene expression and establish the impact of a metabolic disease on histone acylations and transcription our preliminary data showed that histone h4k16acprbu play key roles in chromatin activity and could thus regulate transcription and are impaired in livers of a pa mouse model i hypothesize that acylations cooccurrence will regulate transcription and altered propionylcoa metabolism in pa will impact h4k16 acylations and consequently transcriptionto achieve this i will develop an experimental and computational framework for singlecell simultaneous transcriptome and epigenome profiling scstepseq with this approach i will map h4k16acprbu and the transcriptome in singlecells and integrate epigenomic and transcriptomic changes in liver samples from pa mice this interdisciplinary project will address a fundamental question in epigenetics the functional relevance of histone ptms regulated by metabolic state in single cells advance the technology for singlecell multimodal epigenomic profiling and provide for the firsttime molecular understanding of histone acylations in a clinically relevant model
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designing green and energyefficient antidewetting protocols for liquid chromatography
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high performance liquid chromatography hplc is the leading separation technology in research and industry which often relies on potentially hazardous and environmentally harmful organic solvents water is the ideal environmentally friendly mobile phase which would open the way to green hplc however its broad applicability is hindered by the phenomenon of dewetting of the stationary phase the formation of bubbles in the hydrophobic nanoporous material which makes it unavailable to the substances that need to be separated retention loss nodry proposes to develop a unique experimentally validated simulation testbed based on the pi expertise in theory and simulation of dewetting of nanopores acquired in ercstg hygate these simulation tools will be deployed to rationally design hplc protocols capable of eliminating or alleviating the problem of dewetting in most hplc columns operating with pure water as the solvent thus opening the way to a green and energy efficient chromatography
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enabling data enrichment pipelines for aidriven business products and services
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enrichmydata provides a novel paradigm for building rich highquality and valuable datasets to feed big data aalytics and ai applications the paradigm consists in facilitating the specification and scalable execution of data enrichment pipelines with a focus on supporting various data enrichment operations such as discovery understanding selection cleaning transformation integration of big data from a variety of sources enrichmydata makes this paradigm easily accessible to a wide set of large and small organizations that encounter difficulties in the process of delivering suitable data to feed their data analytics solutions due to the lack of suitable tools and expertise to support cost effective and energyefficient management of data enrichment pipelines enrichmydata delivers a software toolbox consisting of tools and infrastructure services for settingup deploying executing and managing data enrichment pipelines the main exploitation targets the operation and monetization of the toolbox primarily in european markets enrichmydata validates its plan through a strong selection of complementary business cases offered by commercially focused organizations targeting development of novel products in a wide range of domains including digital marketing industry 40 medical devices maintenance public procurement innovation ecosystems and mineral processing the balanced consortium consists of 13 partners from 11 countries with a mixture of rdtechnology providers and business case providers enrichmydata gathers five large companies three smes two research institutes and three universities
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population interconnectivity and technological trajectories in southern africa during the mis3 through replicable lithic analysis
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our species emerged from gene flow between structured populations across various regions of africa this process entailed intermitted events of coalescence and fragmentation visible in late pleistocene archaeological records through changing patterns of lithic technological similarity in this framework the mis3 5928 ka is a particularly intriguing period because archaeologists working in southern africa have hypothesized that the marked regional variance in lithic technology is ascribable to cultural fragmentation and reduced information exchange among dispersed populations however it may also stem from the lack of a replicable system for recording and statistically analyzing lithic traits the rstone project seeks to address this research challenge by pursuing three primary objectives firstly it will develop a standardized method for recording lithic traits through comprehensive replicability experiments secondly it will utilize this established recording system to collect novel lithic data from seven welldated mis3 stratigraphic sequences across malawi mozambique namibia and south africa finally it will conduct a quantitative intersite comparison to explore technotypological similarities and differences and determine whether the observed variance follows a pattern of isolation by distance or if other factors such as geological constraints played a role in shaping the way in which human foragers produced stone tools this research will yield valuable opensource tools implemented in the r programming language and highresolution datasets in line with open science practices rstone will prioritize the transfer and sharing of these resources with a particular focus on engaging young african researchers the extensive collaboration network will ensure a robust dissemination of results while positioning the fellow as a key figure in exploring the intricate interplay between human cultural diversity and population dynamics during the pleistocene
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from household allocations to global inequality new methods facts and policy implications
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to understand and mitigate economic inequalities both locally and globally we need to acknowledge inequalities within households yet in most empirical studies such intrahousehold inequalities are disregarded mainly because we lack appropriate measurement tools and data not only is this problematic for inequality measurement this lack of understanding hampers the design of costeffective poverty reduction and child development policies this project has five general objectives first i will update the facts about inequalities through direct measurement of intrahousehold consumption allocations and relate these to spousal income contributions second i will develop and validate novel measures of parental resourceallocation preferences and use these to study whether children are likely to benefit more if mothers rather than fathers receive cash transfers third i will develop and validate novel measures of household decisionmaking and use these to investigate how targeted transfers shape womens empowerment fourth i will study whether cash transfers or an educational parenting program is most costefficient for child development fifth i will use an integrated framework and the new tools and data to refine our understanding of the mechanisms behind inequalities among adults and child development concretely the project will contribute to our knowledge in the following specific ways i will carry out an extensive data collection on intrahousehold allocations parentalallocation preferences and womens empowerment in ten very diverse countries one from each decile of the world income distribution i will engage in a local rct in tanzania on cash transfers and parenting which also involves extensive data collection on household consumption time use preferences and decisionmaking finally i will conduct lab experiments in chile india and tanzania so as to validate the parentalallocation preference and decision making measures
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towards an integrated capability to explain and predict regional climate changes
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the climate system is changing rapidly and some regions have seen increases in extremes beyond what is expected from climate model simulations to support targeted climate adaptation strategies expect will enable trustworthy assessments and predictions of regional climate change including extremes by developing a prototype operational capability for integrated attribution and prediction of climate this ambitious goal is closely aligned with the wcrp lighthouse activity on explaining and predicting earth system changeexpect will identify and quantify the mechanisms by which physical processes govern regional climatic changes including extremes on interannual to multidecadal time scales it will do so by exploiting newly available climate simulations and earth observations eos and by combining machine learning ml with physical methods the research will target fundamental knowledge gaps related to atmospheric circulation and landatmosphere interactions which represent major limitations in current climate predictions and projections and in particular in understanding changes in european summer extremesto underpin the research and benefitting the wider research community expect will develop tools to efficiently analyse a variety of large data sets in combination that are hosted in different repositories across institutions this will facilitate the exploitation of recent investments into highresolution climate models and eo data expect will further build data science capacity for the scientifically robust efficient and reproducible analysis of the massive data assets including novel ml approaches and provide training for the climate science community and the next generation of researchers in particularexpect will thus deliver significant scientific and technological advances for society and the climate science community that will last well beyond the project in support of wcrps strategic objectives
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comprehensive solutions of healthcare improvement based on the global registry of stroke care quality
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resq will build on the success of resq registry of stroke care quality currently used by many eu countries and 74 worldwide to improve stroke care quality by collecting and analyzing hospital discharge reports resq will revolutionize these improvements by capturing the whole patient pathway the solution will combine nlp with a clinicallyvalidated semantic model to automate ingestion of hospital discharge reports in different languages and assist with audit and feedback this will include creating a standard model for such reports and using ai to impute missing data further augmentations include the creation of two novel ai voice assistants one to help patients provide feedback on their health and the other to help physicians provide high quality carewe will integrate all these tools into resq this will be the basis for a european open stroke data platform an open research platform for data aggregation semantic harmonization and interoperability across european countries to promote the use and reuse of health data we will facilitate efforts to define a standard european stroke hospital discharge report exchange format as a tool for better secondary use of data and healthcare in general consortium legal partners will develop a comprehensive legal and ethical toolbox as guidance towards legal compliance this will boost wider adoption of such novel aibased solutions by integrating all current and proposed union legislation our clinical partners will provide medical records and steer the development to maximize clinical utility and validate final solutions resq will be deployed globally to solidify our position as european and global leader in quality improvement eventually we will guarantee citizens a similar level of quality control during hospitalizations as when flying in a commercial plane
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next generation mechanistic models of retinal interneurons
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ever since the work hodgkin and huxley models of neurons have been essential for our understanding of neural computations such models have been developed at diverse levels of realism from linearnonlinear cascade or blackbox models to detailed compartmental models while these approaches are commonly viewed as incompatible they have attractive strengths from an epistemic point of view in this project i propose to develop a new generation of hybrid mechanistic models that reconcile these levels of modelling they will consist of a compartmental model for the neuron of interest with inputs approximated by blackbox models i will leverage the power of these hybrid models to tackle one of the most challenging questions in visual neuroscience the staggering diversity of amacrine cells a major class of inhibitory interneurons in the vertebrate retina despite their diversity they are the least understood class of neurons in the retina in stark contrast to the remaining circuitry while in mouse more than 60 types of acs have been identified by single cell transcriptomics only a handful has been studied at depth i will build on the latest advances in machine learning to develop a framework for efficiently inferring the parameters of a hybrid mechanistic model to constrain the model parameters we will acquire twophoton calcium and voltage imaging data during natural stimulation further we will extend our framework to incorporate transcriptomic information about gene expression collected via patchseq into the inference procedure allowing us to map the amacrine cells to genetically defined types thus in this project i propose to develop a toolset to systematically uncover the role of retinal amacrine cells during natural visual computations and link it to its mechanistic basis providing a path forward to solving one of the key remaining mysteries of visual neuroscience
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precision lethality to overcome clonal heterogeneity in highrisk neuroblastoma
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tumors are heterogeneous in nature due to genetic instabilittumors are heterogeneous in nature due to genetic instability ongoing selection and variable microenvironments with local adaptation many tumors thus necessitate combinatorial drug treatments to reach all cells this is true also for neuroblastoma the most common extracranial solid pediatric tumor despite the wellknown importance of clonal heterogeneity most in vitro drug combination strategies including commonly used synergistic interaction do not quantify subclonal drug response here recently developed cell barcoding strategies will be used to monitor survival of thousands of individual subclones in neuroblastoma organoids under different drug perturbations this lineage tracing strategy allows identification of cell populations that survive a specific drug and to find other drugs that specifically target those cell populations i call this strategy precision lethalityin this research program two different precision lethality methodologies will be developed one where cell barcoding is used to identify drug combinations with low crossresistance and one that uses the possibility to express the barcode so it can be captured by single cell rna sequencing this allows assessing the transcriptional state before drug perturbation of cells that are known to be either drug resistant or drug sensitive combined with publicly available drug sensitivity data repositories this will be used to construct a deep learning model to predict drug sensitivities of individual cellssuccessful completion of this multidisciplinary research program will identify and verify new drugs to complement standard of care consolidation therapy for neuroblastoma i also envision that these studies will showcase to the broader cancer research community how cell barcoding can be used as a drug combination strategy to overcome clonal heterogeneity which would increase the chances of finding curative cancer treatments
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training wind energy experts on digitalisation
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training wind energy experts on digitalisation tweed doctoral network dn aims to train the next generation of excellent researchers equipped with a full set of technical and complementary skills to develop highimpact careers in wind energy digitalization this goal will be achieved through an outstanding researchforinnovation programme and a unique training programme that combines handson research training interactive schools and hackathons innovation management and placements with nonacademic partner organizations an integrated research program will be carried out alongside the development of a virtual wind energy data science hub that facilitates a virtual research environment to foster collaboration data sharing and testing of innovative solutions seeking drastic costofenergy reductions the network will provide an interdisciplinary and intersectoral context to foster creativity in transforming technological challenges into data science problems that can be solved to develop prototypes for commercial exploitation researchers will be trained in business innovation to extend their focus beyond the academic context to be able to identify addedvalue products or services through customer discovery and guidance from established researchers and entrepreneurs as a result a researchforinnovation mindset will be developed to provide enhanced career perspectives to the fellows equipped with a complete set of thematic technological and innovation skills moreover tweed network will accomplish the foundation of wind energy data science weds as a new research discipline across the eawe network to raise awareness exploit synergies and motivate future career choices the potential of dataintensive science as a new paradigm will allow reducing the cost of energy by as much as 13 during the project lifetime and 50 by 2050 by intelligent solutions not accessible to traditional wind energy specialists
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european eddyrich esms
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eddy rich earth system models eerie will develop a new generation of earth system models esms that are capable of explicitly representing a crucially important yet unexplored regime of the earth system the ocean mesoscale leveraging the latest advances in science and technology eerie will substantially improve the ability of such esms to faithfully represent the centennialscale evolution of the global climate especially its variability extremes and how tipping points may unfold under the influence of the ocean mesoscale model improvements include new dynamical cores new components particularly sea ice scaleaware parametrization and the complementary use of machine learning ml the technological challenge associated with this ambition is very high eeries goal is to achieve a simulation speed of up to 5 simulated years per day 5 sypds and to make efficient use reduction in power consumption by 50 of the preexascale supercomputers now available in europe the technological solutions that are to be leveraged in eerie are the use of reduced precision gpus ml and reduced io alongside model improvements eerie will develop innovative experimental simulation protocols that are suitable for the mesoscale to be pioneered on behalf of the global climate modelling community in preparation for the next ipcc eerie will produce useful and usable climate information that will contribute to national and international climate change assessments such as ipcc it will incorporate model variability and extremes within an integrated assessment model iam via a mlemulato and it will deliver storyline approaches to the consequences of climate tipping points and disease outbreaks
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investigating fictional representations of child sexual abuse in contemporary culture myths and understanding
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child sexual abuse csa is a critical issue facing contemporary societies and one which inspires many fictional representations in creative cultural works despite csas prevalence and potentially serious consequences it remains relatively taboo and stakeholders refer to a societal flinch or aversion from engaging with the issue which hinders survivors wellbeing this avoidant response seems to have been inadvertently replicated in literary and cultural studies in which csa as a theme is almost completely overlooked meaning that its full cultural implications are currently unknown the csareps project will address this by exploring the culturally significant but neglected body of works which depict csa examining not only their representational strategies but also their potential role in shaping peoples understandings of csa the objectives are1 to analyse the themes form and emotional cues in csa fictions from key genres crime horror young adult popular general in the culturally prevalent forms of literature film and television providing a foundational mapping of these representations and opening a new and longoverdue research horizon in literary and cultural studies2 to explore how csa fiction may inform social attitudes by performing the first ever empirical investigation of audience responses to it including the general public and csa survivors identifying influence will be challenging but could transform our understanding of how public views on abuse are formed impacting disciplines like psychology and social work for which such knowledge is key3 to develop a new conceptual framework which interlinks thematic and empirical approaches to cultural scholarship to allow the mapping of csa fictions to be related to the audience response findings ultimately yielding a model suggesting the relationship between csa fictions and their effectsthis transferrable framework will support explorations of abuse representations across cultures and media
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the evolution of cis and transregulators in eukaryotes
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gene regulation plays an essential role in shaping species differences and modulating phenotypes across development and environmental conditions it essentially works through the recruitment of transacting intermediates to cisacting dna sequences affecting the expression of the nearby gene while gene expression regulation is central in molecular cellular developmental and system biology its detailed mechanisms have relatively little been incorporated into modern evolutionary theory i previously discovered two processes specific to gene expression evolution in diploids cisregulator runaway and divergence they arise because of i transient dominance modifications that automatically occur following the evolution of cisacting regulatory elements and ii coevolution of these cisacting elements with transacting regulators i have shown that accounting for these processes calls into question a halfcentury of theory on sex chromosome evolution and may rejuvenate empirical and theoretical work in this field here i will develop the evolutionary theory of cis and transregulators at full scale and empirically test its core features and predictions specifically there are sound reasons to believe that this new theory also has the potential to strongly advance our understanding of other fundamental and enigmatic features of eukaryotic life it may be a crucial missing element to explain the origin of eukaryotic regulatory complexity and how and why sex asex transitions fail or succeed and therefore why eukaryotic sex is maintained regevol offers a new and original approach to important problems in evolutionary biology if successful it will significantly advance our understanding of eukaryotic lifeforms and provide a general framework for gene expression evolution in eukaryotes
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radiation harvesting of bioactive peptides from egg proteins and their integration in advanced functional products
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radov moves from the wellestablished radiation process applications in food irradiation for disinfection and shelflife increase and from several decades of fundamental studies of the biological effects of radiation in vivo to explore completely new routes for the production of bioactive peptides from egg proteins based on radiationinduced fragmentation and new product prototypes that incorporate egg proteinderived peptideshigh energy radiation from electron accelerators will be used to produce peptides and the collection of the results acquired regarding the peptide structure irradiation conditions and related bioactivity properties will be one vital output of the project to expand the application of ionizing radiation and to demonstrate the broad scope of its applications new products containing bioactive proteins peptides will be designed and developed with the use of electron beam irradiation to manufacture them in particular two target products will be developed as demonstrators of eggderived amps by radiationinduced fragmentation peptideladen antimicrobialantioxidant hydrogel wound dressings and peptidegrafted active food packaging film
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revealing the ancient plant ethylene biosynthesis and acc signaling pathway
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when ancestral plants colonized the land 450 million years ago they needed to adapt to harsh environmental conditions when giving up their aquatic lifestyle i hypothesize that during this watertoland transition the volatile plant hormone ethylene became an important growth regulator to face terrestrial stressors in fact modernday crops use ethylene to regulate stress responses and perhaps ethylene served this role in pioneering land plants to cope with the harsh conditions coinciding with this habitat transition during my postdoc i showed that ethylene signaling was functionally assembled in ancestral charophyte green algae prior to land colonization now i question why and how early land plants produced ethylene while seed plants make ethylene using acc as precursor nonseed plants follow a different yet unknown ethylene biosynthesis pathway which i want to reveal using the liverwort marchantia polymorpha a model species representing early life on earth i also question why nonseed plants make acc but not use it for ethylene synthesis recent studies revealed that acc itself can act as a signaling molecule independent from ethylene by an unknown signaling pathway to regulate plant development i also postulate that both the alternative ethylene biosynthesis and acc signaling pathway might have an origin in ancient algae prior to land colonization and might be conserved in seed plants possibly exerting important functions yet to be uncovered using functional genetics in representative species of algae and crops ethylution will unravel the importance and role of acc and ethylene that allowed plants to thrive on earth perhaps one of the most impactful events in the evolutionary history of plants
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mechanisms of proliferationindependent mutation
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dna damage contributes to the ageing of tissues and causes mutations that drive cancer however the molecular mechanisms underlying many mutational processes are not understood and neither is how much they contribute to disease with a powerful new technology i propose to close these major gaps for common clock mutations of unknown originthe recent genome sequencing revolution has revealed unexpected diversity in mutational patterns one pattern in particular is intriguing as it behaves as a molecular clock the number of mutations increases over time and correlates with age although the textbook view of mutagenesis is that cell division is required to convert dna damage into point mutations surprisingly nondividing cells like neurons also accumulate clock mutations as a function of time indicating that clock mutations arise without genome replicationunderstanding how cells mutate independently of proliferationand thus challenging the current paradigm of mutagenesisis a fundamental question that has been hindered because assays to measure mutation require cell division excitingly i have overcome this major obstacle by establishing a powerful strategy to sensitively detect mutations in single cells genomewide my group will combine this approach with targeted genetic manipulations in cells and mice to answer two central questions 1 how do cells mutate independently of proliferation 2 what drives these mutations in tissues my novel insights into endogenous dna damage from mouse genetics and genomics combined with the innovative sequencing strategy that i have established uniquely position me to answer these longstanding questions together the work proposed here will reveal the molecular mechanisms underlying the most common mutational process in humans clock mutation the methods data and insights from these groundbreaking studies will directly impact cancer research and uncover novel sources of dna damage during aging
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supporting the potentials of digital datadriven solutions for livestock tracking
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eu data governance act and recent advances in technology provide a unique momentum to automate and expand livestock data collection integration and exploitation by strengthening the coordination of efforts of science and industry the ultimate goal of digi4live is to increase the capacity of livestock sector actors across europe to benefit from data generating and digital technologies by using a strong multiactor and cocreation approach which brings together livestock sector actors from farm to fork from science to livestock and technology industries competent authorities and other key actors and engages them in cocreation of digital data concepts digi4live enables greater use of current and new data digital technologies in livestock tracking digi4live is a 45 years coordination and support action that is reaching out to over 1000 organisations and initiatives across europe to make an impact towards economically environmentally and socially sustainable digitalised livestock business that meets consumers expectations more effective public administration and impactful policydigi4live boosts the creation of standards and harmonised regulations thus eliminating technical barriers for data and new datagenerating technologies and provides evidence on economic social and environmental impacts of datadriven solutions in the livestock sector and boosts collaboration between ri initiatives across all eu member states and beyond it will point out how public administration and policy monitoring assessment businesses and consumers can benefit from digital technologies concepts for greater exploitation of data will be codeveloped and examined in six thematic case study hubs and brought to the attention of end users to such an integrated approach can really make a difference by enabling substantially improved use of data for the benefit of science policy and business the project will provide policy and business conclusions
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upcycling plastic waste for distributed passive cooling applications
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coolchips addresses two grant challenges of our modern society 1 global warming requires new technologies to mitigate the everaccelerating consequences of climate change passive daytime cooling is such an emerging technology that requires intricate photonic engineering of materials 2 plastic waste is evolving as an increasing challenge to keep our environment pollutionfree we therefore will investigate an upcycling strategy to put used foodpackaging polymers to an even better use mitigating global warming consequently we outline synthetic strategies to equip aluminum laminate polymer films widely known for chips bags etc with an additional coating this coating layer combination will be designed so that solar radiance will be fully reflected and thermal radiation in the midinfrared range will be efficiently emitted this unique combination of optical properties is the key to using cold outer space as a heat sink for our environment day and night we will achieve this goal by using our knowledge in polymer and composite materials synthesis and processing we will further develop scalable processing strategies to glue or weld the individual recycling pieces to large passive cooling foils this upcycling is vital for the envisioned transition to enduser products that can then be realized by established rolltoroll processing technologies foreseeable application cases such as covers for tents glueable foils for blinds or standalone parasols will be investigated with established industry partners the development of the required processing steps and material selection will be tightly accompanied by an intellectual property patenting strategy and market analysis to ensure optimum exploitation of this promising novel material development overall coolchips will make passive daytime cooling materials accessible to various communities providing a green and affordable way to cooler environments
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pn6047 a breakthrough treatment of neuropathic pain
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pharmnovo aims to develop novel drugs with superior clinical properties to treat patients suffering from chronic pain using knowledge and experience in drug design and g proteincoupled receptor pharmacologypharmnovos lead drug candidate is pn6047 a completely new type of opioid drug for neuropathic pain with a firstinclass market potential unlike the currently available opioid drugs which activate all opioid receptors pn6047 is a very selective delta opioid receptor agonist activator due to its unique molecular structure pn6047 selectively activates the g protein signalling pathway while avoiding those leading to unwanted side effects such as the arrestin protein signalling pathway that mediates receptor desensitization and analgesic tolerance and possibly proconvulsant activity pn6047 can be the first of a new drug class for neuropathic pain treatment delta opioidbiased receptor agonists dobras preclinical studies have shown that pn6047 is safe tolerable and effective in treating neuropathic pain and also other painrelated indications such as opioid withdrawal and chronic cough the clinical phase i study has confirmed that pn6047 is safe and tolerable at doses predicted to be efficaciousnow the drug is ready to proceed into a phase iia poc study which is the focus of the proposed accelerator project the confirmation of the clinical efficacy of pn6047 will enable us to enter an outlicensing agreement with one of the major players in the chronic pain market alternatively it would allow us to attract significant equity investments and finance subsequent phase iib and iii clinical trials scale up manufacturing market approval and product launchthis project is of strategic healtheconomic importance for europe about 149 million people in europe suffer from chronic pain including about 298 million neuropathic pain patients in europe the healthcare cost of chronic pain is estimated at over 300bn annually around 15 3 of gdp
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modelling the biochemistry of terpene synthases
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modbioterp aims to train 10 exceptional candidates in biochemistry aiguided enzyme modeling laboratorydirected evolution and synthetic biology the focus of this project is on the natural product class of terpenoids which are the largest and most chemically diverse class of natural products and hold immense potential for biotechnological applications with the latest eu policy on critical technologies from september 2023 which includes biotechnology and specifically mentions synthetic biology modbioterp is wellpoised to address these challenges terpene synthases tpss are the enzymes responsible for generating the structural diversity found among terpenoid natural products these elegant enzymes mediate complex carbocationbased cyclization and rearrangement cascades with various electronrich linear and cyclic substrates terpenes are abundant in plants bacteria and fungi and also form the basis of all life through sterols and other very basic metabolites the biochemistry of terpene synthases is at the core of modbioterp with the focus on the challenge of translating a given enzyme model into the understanding of the product profiles of terpene synthases and providing a strong product prediction tool based on the enzyme models developed the project will explore and exploit the chemical and biological diversity of terpenoids and develop a new fundamental biochemical understanding of these enzymes ensuring the technological leadership of europe with this project we will unlock the vast potential of terpenoids and lead the way toward sustainable and innovative biotechnological solutions in modbioterp 10 doctoral candidates dcs will spend their research and training time in academic and industrial groups that are global leaders in the field of terpenoid biochemistry and enzyme modeling all dcs will also spend time with secondment partners to learn new techniques and be immersed in different scientific environments
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robotics and artificial intelligence for critical asset monitoring
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this project aims to develop technologies which will enhance the operational capabilities of mobile robots for use in the inspection and maintenance of industrial facilities a major task in many industrial environments is the retrieval of samples for chemical or biological analysis surface swabbing is often conducted manually but this creates limits on the number of samples that can be taken and their location there are often many places that cant be reached by people either due to the location very high or in confinedrestricted access spaces or environmental hazardous such as heat or radiationthis project will develop a multidomain multiagent robotic sample retrieval system that will be able to obtain samples across a range of environments these samples will either be stored for exsitu analysis in labs or taken to mobile labs for insitu realtime analysed due to the nature of the operational environments full autonomy is not desirable so shared autonomy humanintheloop will be required the primary application focus will be nuclear environments however the technologies will be applicable to many other sectors include petrochemical offshore and agriculture
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wave energy demonstration at utility scale to enable arrays
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wedusea led by irish wave energy developer ocean energy will demonstrate a grid connected 1mw oe35 floating wave energy converter known as the oe buoy at the european marine energy test site emec in orkney scotland this rigorous technical and environmental demonstration will happen over a 2 year period in atlantic wave conditions with outcomes directly impacting policy technical standards public perception and investor confidence the project will demonstrate that the technology is on a cost reduction trajectory in line with the eu set plan targets and will be a stepping stone to larger commercial array scale up and further industrialisation the action will integrate sub components such as moorings and ptos improving efficiency reliability scalability sustainability and circularity of the technology the combined actions of the work programme are expected to reduce the lcoe for the technology from 361mwh to 245mwh a 32 reduction for a 20mw array the lcoe would reduce from 185mwh to 127mwhthe project has 3 clear phases phase 1 the initial design phase leading into a gono go phase 2 demonstration in which it is expected that the baseline device will generate in excess of 1650 mwh over the deployment and phase 3 commercialisation and dissemination which sees the capitalisation and exploitation of the results ocean energy and other consortium companies will actively exploit the results through new innovations products and services the results will be disseminated to feed both environmental databases and iec electrotechnical standards this action will take wave energy beyond the state of the art building on the partners experience in prior eu projects enabling arrays of reliable devices to achieve the 1gw target set out in the 2030 dgener offshore renewable energy strategy planned engagement will create more public perception empower and inform policy makers and derisk larger scale investments to meet the 2050 targets
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deciphering mineralogical and compositional properties of kidney stones implications for formation mechanism and potential treatments
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kidney stone disease is a vital health problem with a significant increase in prevalence worldwide it is known that kidney stone formation is affected by medical conditions ie diabetes environmental factors dietary habits and gender although the relationship between the stone mineralogical and chemical properties eg crystal structure elemental composition etc to the urine and blood parameters are still unclear notably there is limited information on how the kidney stone mineral phase is influenced by the organic compounds of body fluids during growth and dissolution likewise the kidney stone isotope composition will be recorded during its formation and subsequently can be used as an indicator of dietary habits environmental factors and identifying underlying diseases eg diabetes osteoporosis mikidston aims to perform a systematic study from macro to nanoscale on a large array of different types of kidney stone samples to assess i the influence of the body fluid urine and blood parameters as recorded in patients on the characteristics of kidney stone biomineral phases ii the relationship of the chemicalisotope composition of kidney stones to their structure and risk factors eg diet environment diabetes etc and iii the controlling factors for stone formation and dissolution these objectives will be achieved combining applicants expertise and that of pis from the two host institutions on mineralogical and isotope analyses the outcomes will shed light on connection between kidney stone structure composition growth and dissolution with physiological parameters for patients with urolithiasis with important implications for accurate diagnosis and effective treatment strategies finally mikidston findings will have important implications for future pathological biomineral investigation using cuttingedge techniques and most importantly for the study of other stonerelated human diseases eg gallstones
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multicomponent supramolecular structures as artificial enzyme mimics
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supramolecular polymers sps are at the forefront of current research to functional biomimetic materials and systems among the plethora of sps appeared in the literature in the last decades those based on 135benzenetricarboxyamide bta which have shown to form double helical fibres both in organic and aqueous solution have been employed as a robust platform for the design of bioinspired materials with tailored and tuneable properties indeed noncovalent synthesis allows to easily obtain a wide range of functional sps by simply mixing chemically distinct monomers in solution which will spontaneously selfassemble into dynamic structures such approach has been exploited to develop btabased sps able to bind nucleic acids in a superselective fashion through multivalent interactions between positively charged coassembled bta monomers and the phosphate present in the oligonucleotide backbone building on these previous findings must artem aims to develop functional sps to be exploited as artificial nucleases able to recognize and cleave rna the recognition and the hydrolytic activity are provided by cationic components bearing the 147triazacyclononanezinc complexes tacnzn2 which is well known to catalyse the hydrolysis of phosphodiester bonds the positively charged components undergo clustered upon binding with the oligonucleotide thus enhancing the hydrolytic ability of the zinc complex through cooperative catalysis once degraded the rna is no more able to induce clustering of the functional monomers which will come back to the initial random distribution switching off the catalytic ability of the fibres such functional sps will be then tested in more complex systems to trigger downstream selfassembly of dna structures finally liquidliquid phase separation of the functional sps will be achieved developing bioinspired compartmentalized hydrolytic microreactors
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the impacts of ocean finescale whirls on climate and ecosystems
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whirls is about small processes having largescale impacts heat and carbon are the currencies of regional and global climate constantly exchanged between the ocean and the atmosphere this exchange is strongly influenced by finescales ocean eddieswhirlsthat flux heat and carbon towards or away from the airsea interface when the ocean gives up heat and carbon to the atmosphere climate is warmer and wetter and vice versa carbon that is fluxed towards the airsea interface where sunlight is available can be taken up by phytoplankton that form the base of the oceanic food web eddies and fronts alter vertical nutrient fluxes and ocean stratification which help shape biodiversity and ecosystems the proliferation of finescale processes and their interdisciplinary and largescale impacts are poorly understood in whirls we will use a synergistic and interdisciplinary approach to study finescale processes across a continuum of scales 1100 km and assess their impacts on airsea exchange and marine biogeochemistry and biodiversity we focus on the agulhas current system around south africa because it is a global hotspot of eddy activity oceanatmosphere heat exchange and marine productivity and diversity it is also a region that plays a key role for the global ocean circulation and global climate and climate change we will use multiple coordinated observing strategies including research vessels and a large ensemble of autonomous platforms to collect physical chemical and biological datasets across scales these data will be supplemented by highresolution models of the ocean and the atmosphere developed with a focus on the agulhas current system as well as the latest data science methodologies whirls will improve the understanding of finescale processes and its representation in future earth system models for better predictions and projections of the future climate
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largescale multicore smart photonics using advanced design and configuration protocols to develop the largestscale programmable photonic processor
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emerging communications and computing fields are pushing the limits of integrated electronics demanding growing performance and requiring to symbiotically team up with integrated photonics the development of multipurpose programmable photonic integrated circuits promises costeffective mass production and the system versatility required in novel dynamic processing scenarios however their scalability is a major challenge constrained both by hardware and softwareto unleash the potential of programmable photonics it is essential to create novel circuits and components as well as to redefine its fundamentals multicore architectures are a potential unexplored solution offering scalability multitasking and parallelization but key technology enablers are required to jump to practical largescale applicationsthe aim of this project is to develop the theoretical and technological fundamentals of programmable integrated photonics to unlock their limitedscale by developing the first largescale multicore programmable photonic processor and its application as a complexvalued neuromorphic computerto achieve this aim we will i identify the main scalability limits advanced photonic circuit architectures and component development solutions for largescale programmable photonic circuits ii develop a functional singlecore programmable photonic processor with more than 2500 phase actuators iii demonstrate largescale complexvalued coherent neuromorphic circuits and iv develop a functional 4core programmable photonic processor with more than 10000 actuators and demonstrate its experimental application to photonic neuromorphic systemslsphotonicss will have a major impact on highdensity integrated photonics circuits by facilitating a new paradigm of generalpurposeapplication advanced photonic computing and readytouse and flexible devices that will extend the penetration of advanced photonics technology into seamless areas of application
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secured and intelligent massive machinetomachine communications for 6g
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to satisfy the expected plethora of demanding services 6g is envisioned as a revolutionary paradigm to carry forward the capacities of enhanced broadband massive access and ultrareliable and low latency services in 5g wireless networks to a more robust and intelligent level this move will introduce significant new multidisciplinary research challenges emerging throughout the wireless communication protocol stacks including the way the mobile network is modelled and deployed the structure of 6g networks will be highly heterogeneous densely deployed and dynamic combined with the tight quality of services such complex architecture will result in the untenability of legacy network operation routines in response artificial intelligence ai especially machine learning ml semantic communication and digital twin dt are emerging as solutions to realize the fully intelligent network orchestration and management by learning from uncertain and dynamic environments aienabled channel estimation and spectrum management will open up opportunities for bringing the excellent performance of ultrabroadband techniques into full play additionally challenges brought by ultramassive access concerning energy and security can be mitigated by applying aibased approaches the overall research objective of the scion project is to develop and design the network systems for seamless wireless access for secure and intelligent massive machinetomachine communications for 6g in addition to technology development to meet the urgent needs for the future working force of the coming 6g era this collaborative project will create a training network for doctoral candidates who will contribute to the design and implementation of future 6g networks
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unravelling specificity of epimetabolic regulation in mouse development
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when environment of the embryo changes or when development progresses metabolic reactions are rapidly affected these alterations to chemical reactions are coupled to epigenetic memory however without mechanistic data on how this coupling occurs it is difficult to understand how normal embryogenesis can proceed this project will elucidate how metabolic changes result in specific epigenetic outcomes and address the function of such regulation as a model we will use mouse implantation a process tightly linked to dramatic alterations to chromatin and transcription we found that this is also associated with extensive metabolic rewiring and that disrupting metabolic flows results in both lineagespecific and markspecific changes to chromatin while multiple studies uncovered that metabolism fuels chromatin modifiers with cofactors the fundamental biological question of how specificity is achieved remains unanswered here we will address this challenge by directly testing the three most likely hypotheses 1 that metabolic reactions shuttle into the nucleus where they specifically fuel chromatin changes 2 that chromatinbound metabolic enzymes regulate gene expression and 3 that only specific chromatin modifiers are sensitive to metabolic changes to address these questions we will go beyond description as we supplement multiomic approaches with mechanistic experiments both in vitro and in vivo firstly will use perturbations of nuclear metabolic enzymes and their chromatin binding secondly we will implement protein engineering to render chromatin modifiers resistant to the availability of their cofactors by uncoupling epimetabolic regulation we seek not only to uncover its importance for controlling chromatin states but also the implantation developmental program this project will form a framework of how future studies can mechanistically unravel intertwined regulatory processes and assess the role of environment and nutrition in early pregnancy
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bioinspired legged underwater robots for ecological monitoring and exploration
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a deeper understanding of marine ecosystems is crucial to enforce protective actions and promote a sustainable exploitation of the oceans resources adequate spatial and temporal coverage of data can be obtained by resorting to a network of fixed and mobile platforms to combine the advantages of different types of units existing mobile platforms such as autonomous underwater vehicles auvs and seabed crawlers present intrinsic limitations when operating in the benthic environment which can be overcome by underwater legged robots ulrs ulrs with arthropodlike versatile locomotion are not much affected by currents drain little power while keeping a fixed position exhibit a gentler interaction with the seabed and produce a lower acoustic signature in comparison with propeller driven vehicles the blue project aims at bringing the advantages of bioinspired ulrs in ecological monitoring applications by combining their capabilities with those of fixed and mobile platforms this aim will be pursued by 1 demonstrating tethered integration of a bioinspired ulr with a fixed monitoring platform ie underwater cabled observatory to perform visual census of the ictic community and by 2 implementing a collaboration between a bioinspired ulr and an auv to demonstrate obstacle free navigation to undertake this research i will join the marine science institute of the spanish national research council worlds expert in the ecology of the mediterranean sea additionally i will carry out two secondments at the university of girona and at the polytechnic university of catalonia to receive training on mobile and fixed monitoring platforms and gain access to unique facilities such as the auv girona500 and the obsea cabled observatory this project will contribute to the development of new tools for underwater operations with potential impact in scientific and commercial sectors and will establish the proponent as a prominent researcher in underwater robotics
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mobilizing advanced partnerships for digital innovation and transformation
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in europes digitally transforming business landscape innovative smes and startups in widening countries are pioneering change in their region yet face challenges like limited resources and complex ri ecosystems for internationalization concurrently eu ri networks seek to expand and include these widening entities for a more inclusive costeffective development mapit aims to bridge this gap by linking innovative smes research entities and european ri networks this project comes in the wake of structural funds granted to establish four digital innovation centers in turkish research entities and one in estonian where innovative smes will be hosted and can access the ri capacities via the research entity mapit aims to increase the participation of these entities in horizon europe strengthening universityindustry partnerships the project has two core objectives the roadmapping strand employs action research methodologies and a conversational ai tool finetuned with information from sources like cordis for discovering and planning complementary ri partnerships this will let the research entities build clusters and collaborate with ncps towards sustainable international ri portfolios the future studies strand delivers a comprehensive international ri managers and administrators upskilling program enriched by transformative visits and shortterm secondments these interconnected strands work synergistically to facilitate sustainable internationalization and human resource development within ri clusters by focusing on best practices joint initiatives and collaboration mapit aims to empower the five participating research entities with the organizational structure and ri capacities needed for joining the era fulfilling the widera objectives mapit not only offers a participatory methodology that can be replicated by other widening entities but also promotes synergy with european institutions and foster innovation across borders
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personalized prognosis in smoldering myeloma through automated analysis of mutational signatures
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multiple myeloma mm is the second most common haematological cancer which is symptomless until the later stages with few treatment options and poor longterm prognoses nextgeneration dna sequencing ngs has been used to identify and characterise the process of clonal evolution and disease progression in asymptomatic mm however there remains no viable prognostic ngs method which can be used by clinicians to leverage different mutations to predict progression the scientific literature indicates the methods under research utilise large genomic regions and significant coverage in sequencing that would result in prohibitively high costs of testing if applied to the clinical domain the aim of this poc project is to develop a complete lowcost prognostic bioinformatics tool able to characterise the driver mutation signatures of mm in order to allow early diagnosis monitor progression and potentially identify at risk patients that may benefit from early treatment to improve outcomes
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dryprocessing of metal halide perovskites into thin films
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perovskite semiconductors are promising for photovoltaics with a potentially very large market industrial compatible deposition processes that do not employ solvents are unavailable currently we have developed a new deposition process that is completely solvent free compatible with a wide range of perovskite precursors operates at moderate vacuum levels and leads to high quality films with crystal grains in the order of 500 nm in the aperitif project we aim to attract industrial sponsors both equipment manufacturers and photovoltaic module producers to license this novel process and use it to build a larger scale prototype and implement it for larger area solar cells to do this we will protect this process and the novel perovskite compositions and subsequent solar cells by filing patents in view of the superior perovskite film quality we expect to obtain more efficient and stable photovoltaic devices as the processing method is compatible with continuous operation it allows for high speed production something that is urgently needed to address the enormous growth scenarios of photovoltaic panels
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waste to worth a green solution for waste concrete powder and incinerator bottom ash reinforced by co2 capturing in concrete
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the worlds population is growing continuouslyand the waste generation is too in 2019 1052 m tonnes of the total eu waste generated was landfilled 30 of which was from the construction sector in particular waste concrete and municipal incinerator bottom ash iba proper management of these wastes is one of the most important responsibilities to provide a healthy environment for future generations moreover reducing co2 emission to at least 55 below 1990 levels by 2030 is a must to reach a carbonfree society aligned with the european green deal hence the proposed project aims to utilize waste concrete powder wcp and iba as alternative materials to cement and thereby convert these solid wastes into worth this also helps to satisfy the cement demand in the construction industry as a massive co2 emitter the main objectives of w2wgco2 are to treat the wcp and iba by co2 capturing from emitted flue gas of cement plant to manufacture the cementitious composite cc from carbonated wcp and carbonated iba and to study the performance of the cc in the green concrete application this proposal involves extensive training of the researcher on the carbonation treatment method and green concrete technology in the host ntnu and advanced characterization of the carbonated wastes in the academic secondment ietcccsic life cycle assessment of carbonated solid wastes and green concrete products will also be studied to highlight the environmental impacts of the proposed project in addition to the environmental benefits the success of the project will boost both research and complementary skills of the researcher including learning new experimental and analysis methods communication teaching and supervision skills writing eu patent and erc funding also the expected results will be published in highimpact journals which improve the profile of the researcher and makes her a competitive person in the field of sustainable and green building materials
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porous polyionic liquids for co2 capture and simultaneous conversion under ambient conditions
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co2 capture storage and utilization is judged critical to mitigate the rapid rise in the atmospheric co2 concentration a key problem is the gigantic mass of co2 emitted which asks for robust efficient and economically viable approaches that are currently missing and limited by the lack of suitable materials to break through this barrier i aim to develop metalfree dualfunction porous polyionic liquids dpps to capture and convert co2 under ambient conditions into cyclic carbonates with high efficiency and to apply them in model reactors for costeffective processing of co2polyionic liquids pils are innovative ionic materials in which ionic liquids ils are covalently joined by a macromolecular backbone ils are known co2philes and ilderived pils are naturally in favour of co2 sorption while their ions can be tailormade for catalytic co2 transformation such dualfunction as sorbent and catalyst is the intrinsic merit of pils to address the co2 challenge but unfortunately has been long impeded by the mismatched chemical structures in each function our preliminary work proved that the newly emerging 124triazolium pils were catalytic active and drastically more co2philic than common polyimidazoliums and are believed as the gamechanger materials we envision that by structuring chemically tailormade 124triazolium pils into highly porous materials they will be able to capture and convert co2 under ambient conditions this groundbreaking materials concept will circumvent the complicated harsh conditions for co2 fixation and cut the cost to an affordably low levelthis project will radically advance scientific knowledge and technology to fixate and convert co2 at scale into valueadded chemicals that further reduces the consumption of fossil resources its outcome will expedite the research in pil and dualfunction materials to revolutionize the ccu routes and equip us with powerful materials tools to mitigate the global co2 rise
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secure interactive environments for sensitive data analytics
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the fair principles provide a framework for enabling proper access and reusability of scientific data and implementing them is a key goal of the european open science cloud eosc however providing access to sensitive or confidential data while preserving privacyconfidentiality and usability for researchers is still an open question existing solutions like safe rooms safe pods or data safe havens are often challenging for the development of reproducible research and seem counterintuitive when dealing with open science and fair principles the siesta project aims to provide a set of tools services and methodologies for the effective sharing of sensitive data in the eosc following a cloudbased model and approach siesta will provide userfriendly tools with the aim of fostering the uptake of sensitive data sharing and processing in the eosc the project will deliver trusted cloudbased environments for the management and sharing of sensitive data that are built in a reproducible way together with a set of services and tools to ease the secure sharing of sensitive data in the eosc through stateoftheart anonymization techniques the overall objective is to enhance the eosc exchange services by delivering a set of cloudbased trusted environments for the analysis of sensitive data in the eosc demonstrating the feasibility of the fair principles over them
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respond rescuing democracy from political corruption in digital societies
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corruption and undue influences are not only linked to democratic discontent but compromise the quality of democracy but how exactly does political corruption operate today how deep can its negative impact on democracy go and how can anticorruption efforts recover peoples support for democracy as a regime and promote their engagement with integrity and their refusal of undemocratic proposals and actions to address these crucial challenges for democracy respond proposes a novel interdisciplinary assessment of political corruption seen here as conducts and acts often proliferating in grey zones regarding legality that results in decisionmaking bias and exclusion in the policy cycle it does so by 1 analyzing four contemporary and relevant forms of political influence political finance lobbying revolving doorspersonal ties and media capture to understand when they become troubling forms of influences connected to specific political corruption patterns hence undermining fair competition and broad participation in political decisionmaking processes 2 evaluating how political corruption is understood by political elites and citizens and is socially constructed through media and education as well as its impacts on both democracys legitimacy and credibility and on responses to counter them 3 exploring how established and emerging digital technologies entangle with political corruption and how they improve anticorruption and prointegrity strategies at both national and crossborder levels 4 engaging in cocreation with relevant stakeholders to design test and revise practices and tools including new risk indicators developed by respond to increase civic monitoring and integrity in current democracies through a mixedmethod research design respond investigates 27 eu countries and 11 neighbouring countries to signal ways to make governments public officials and political parties perform better ethically and recover democracys popularity
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epigeneticgeneticmental health cascade based personalised prevention of noncommunicable disease in adolescents diagnosed with autism ethereal
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five noncommunicable diseases ncd diabetes cardiovascular disease cancer chronic respiratory disease and mental health disorders mhd account for 86 deaths and 77 disease burden in the who europe region of these five ncds mhd is unique as it has a complex bidirectional relationship with the other four major ncds meaning that on one hand it could be the initiator of the other ncds or other ncds could lead to mhd which in turn can further aggravate the primary ncd leading to a vicious circle recent research identified mhd as the highest ranked ncd in adolescent population a specific group in this population that is 3 6 times more vulnerable for developing mhd and subsequent ncd is the adolescents diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders asd there is no evidence based intervention ebi for preventing mhd in an asd adolescent since 1 the major risk factors are ingrained in their biological process and 2 they present with multiple mhd comorbidity personalisation is the key to prevent their already vulnerable mental states making transition to an mhd which ebi is appropriate for which asd adolescent and how to choose it an unsolved question because of their neurobiological characteristics personalisation must be done at biological levelrecent research showed how the environmental factors can alter gene expressions that leads to an mhd through epigeneticgeneticmetabolomicmental health egm process using quantitative modelling of this process ethreal will develop a personalised flexible single service delivery model that will empower an asd adolescent to selfcontrol their environmental factors while seamlessly accessing the community care services to prevent their mental health making transition to an mhd a unique solution for sustainable prevention of mhd and subsequent ncds in this population without loss of generality the proposed solution could be adapted to prevent mhd in wider adolescent population
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the anthropology of the future an art world perspective
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the future has been neglected as an object of anthropological study even though our complex social ecological and now with covid19 biopolitical crises demand novel imaginations of the yettocome moreover anthropologists have urged the decolonisation of existing studies of the future that are often based in the global norths concerns anthrofuture shifts the focus of the anthropology of the future to the pandemicinduced acceleration of the future into the present the project identifies the art world historically featuring a high degree of experimentalism a strong futureorientation and particularly in emerging markets in the global south an openness to risk and speculation as a crucial site for groundbreaking anthropological knowledge on the future the pandemic forced the art world to quickly develop innovative digital solutions to replace physical events the result is a new fully integrated physical and digital system while prepandemic scholarship on the art world largely focuses on institutions professionals and activities as physical phenomena there is no scholarship on this new digitalphysical infrastructure anthrofuture further acknowledges the global south as the most vital site for modeling the future by situating its research in india and pakistan as active and mutually entangled art world locations anthrofuture introduces three novel modes of inquiry 1 systematic research on the digitalphysical art world as an ethnographic site for the study of the future 2 innovative multimodal methodologies for studying the future that combine inperson digital and visual ethnography largescale social media data harvesting and artist subprojects 3 analytical and theoretical advancements on the future as a time zone in comparative terms and across the regional contexts embedded in anthropology the project pursues these objectives driven by the pis extensive research on the past and present of the art world and the global south
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stimuliresponsive mechanically interlocked peptide rotaxanes for biomaterials and biosensing
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mechanically interlocked molecules mims feature mechanical bonds which link multiple distinct components together allowing free movement between them without dissociation this makes mims perfect candidates for artificial molecular machines and earned them the nobel prize in chemistry 2016 over the last 30 years mims have been applied in diverse areas from switchable catalysis to smart materials however they have so far only found limited use in biomedicine due to the often lengthy synthesis and poor solubility in biological media directly addressing these challenges we will use natures own building blocks ie peptides to construct stimuliresponsive mims for use in bioapplications rotaxanes are a class of mim resembling dumbbells with a macrocyclic ring encircling the axle we will use bioactive peptides as the rotaxane axle making them intrinsically biocompatible mims whose bioactivity will be initially silenced via obstruction of the encircled stimuliresponsive macrocycle which acts as protective armour and stabilises the peptide upon application of a stimulus eg light irradiation selfimmolative cleavage of the macrocycle occurs liberating the free peptide hence light acts as a stimulus to turnon the bioactive response of the peptide ondemand we will use this to design advanced biosensing systems for stimuliresponsive mmp2 cleavage of the peptide sequence plglag further we will develop beyond stateoftheart photopatterning methods for cell adhesion using the integrinbinding rgds peptide sequence as our rotaxane axle using the high spatiotemporal control of light we can turn on celladhesion where desired via selfimmolation of the macrocycle using light irradiation this action represents a precise highresolution method for the photopatterning of celladhesive biomaterials a crucial first step for the use of peptidecoated biomaterials in therapeutics eg transplants skingrafts and drug delivery platforms
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democratising and making sense out of heterogeneous scholarly content
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scilakes mission is to build upon the openaire ecosystem and eosc services to a facilitate and empower the creation interlinking and maintenance of scientificscholarly knowledge graphs skgs and the execution of data science and graph mining queries on top of them b contribute to the democratization of scholarly content and the related added value services implementing a communitydriven management approach and c offer advanced aiassisted services that exploit customised perspectives of scientific merit to assist the navigation of the vast scientific knowledge space in brief scilake will develop support and offer customisable services to the research community following a twotier service architecture first it will offer a comprehensive open transparent and customisable scientific datalakeasaservice service tier 1 empowering and facilitating the creation interlinking and maintenance of skgs both across and within different scientific disciplines on top of that it will build and offer a tier of customisable aiassisted services that facilitate the navigation of scholarly content following a scientific meritdriven approach tier 2 focusing on two merit aspects which are crucial for the research community at large impact and reproducibility the services in both tiers will leverage advanced ai techniques text and graph mining that are going to exploit and extend existing technologies provided by scilakes technology partners finally to showcase the value of the provided services and their capability to address current and anticipated needs of different research communities four scientific domains neuroscience cancer research transportation and energy have been selected to serve as pilots for each the developed services will be customised to accommodate differences in research procedures practices impact measures and types of research objects and will be validated and evaluated through realworld use cases
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climate monitoring and decision support framework for sand flyborne diseases detection and mitigation with costbenefit and climatepolicy measures
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climos aims to assist mitigation of climate and climate changeinduced emergence transmission and spread of vectorborne and zoonotic pathogens based on ecohealth and one health approaches this will be achieved by quantifying climate and environmentalrelated drivers of sand fly vector populations and the sand flyborne diseases sfbds across europe the project will provide an early warning system ews and decision support frameworks for more accurate climate and health modelling prognosis of infection risk and range expansions and adaptation options socioeconomic analysis and risk assessments will inform decision support providing social and costbenefit evaluations towards these goals an open access interactive climos online platform will be developed containing data on vector and sfbd species geography and uptodate monitoring climate environment and mathematical algorithms the accompanying educational platform will enable evidencebased mitigation decisionmaking by social environmental and financial stakeholders public bodies and policy makers climos will generate sciencebased predictions actions and policyrelevant recommendations to mitigate climate changeinduced emergence and spread of sfbds by providing precision vector and infection surveillance methods and networks across 14 countries creation of big data time series on vectors disease micro and macroclimate environment and health and on infection risk to be available also for use at the eu climate and health observatory and as european commission isa joinup opensource tool for public and healthcare new interoperability data ontologies open biological and biomedical ontology obo and open geospatial consortium ogc for sfbds and climate new innovative technical solutions for vector monitoring new trapping solution and ews components and at least 30 peerreviewed open access publications 3 policy reports and diversity of public engagement materialsproject climos is part of the european cluster on climate change and health
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fourlegged autonomous robots for industrial inspections
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keybotic builds autonomous dog robots for industrial inspections monitoring and surveillance with the technology that won 1st prize in the darpa robotics challenge keyper our cuttingedge labradorsize robot autonomously monitors the facilities detects gas leaks hotspots steam leaks reads instruments detects intruders and sends realtime alarms to the control center
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debating deltas the early medieval river mouths historical ecologies 6th10th centuries ad an interdisciplinary and comparative approach
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this project will pursue an interdisciplinary methodology to analyse how and why the early medieval european deltas became primary gateways for interaction between sea and inland territories and how they influenced the new socioeconomic scenario after the fall of the roman economic system i will compare two mediterranean cases the rhone and the po deltas with the north sea cases of the rhine and elbe deltas between the 6th10th centuries ad historical document and archaeological analyses in one of the mostactive research clusters of early medieval europe urbnet will be paired for the first time in these areas with new cuttingedge remotesensing technologies and network modelling analysis allowing to a reconstruct the early medieval deltas landscape b understand how deltas environment influenced the form and development of socioeconomic networks c assess what kind of impact people and goods had on deltas and related societies and d identify and possibly define a delta identity establishing a new research trenddeltas through its interdisciplinary approach and the support of leading scholars in both archaeological sindbk and landscape kristiansen analysis of wetland environments has the potential to highlight the crucial sociopolitical and economic role of interaction in delta areas reassessing the opinion of an early medieval socioeconomic stagnation in the mediterranean in this phase moreover the casestudy areas at the borders of the postroman european union under the franks will allow me to investigate the permeability of delta societies engaging with migration cultural integration and selfdefinition and the anthropic interaction with climate change and environmental threats which are pressing contemporary issues finally this project will fill a research gap concerning the development of early medieval socioeconomic systems linked to river deltas an overdue research question not yet fully tackled
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high throughput phylogeography of tumors how the tissue environment influences cancer evolution
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the tumor microenvironment tme is a dynamic ecosystem wherein tumor cells immune cells and stromal cells interact and evolve one of the primary characteristics of cancer progression is the diversification selection and expansion of tumor subclones in manner that largely depends on the tme eg through immune responses or metabolic crosstalk advances in singlecell and spatial genomics provide exciting opportunities for studying how tumors evolve in their tissue context by lending an informationrich perspective on which cell subsets are present and how they might interact however fundamental questions which require the knowledge of how single tumor cells are related subclonally remain challenging to study through that perspective fundamentally what characterizes the immediate cellular environment of successful subclones here we develop transcriptional phylogeography a paradigm for studying tumor development insitu on a transcriptomewide scale and at single cell resolution our work will leverage studies by us and others that utilized crisprcas9 mutations coupled with single cell rna sequencing to infer the lineage structure of thousands of single cells at a time adapting this system for insitu profiling we will generate the first of its kind phylogeography dataset of a tumor model this data will allow us to identify tissue locations that harbor critical subclonal properties such as unrestrained growth dedifferentiation and metastatic seeding and thereby investigate through the lens of high throughput genomics how the tme is associated with these properties we will also identify and offer solutions for outstanding analytical questions in this nascent area from lineage inference given sparse data to characterizing the metabolic aspects of tumortme cross talk together these studies will help establish new causal links between the tme and tumor evolution and lay the foundation for transcriptional phylogeography analysis
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building a sustainable circular economy through innovative biobased manufacturing lines
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newwave will contribute to building a circular economy by introducing sustainable raw materials in different manufacturing lines replacing toxic chemicals and lowering the environmental footprint of the products the raw materials are obtained from thermochemical fractionation of biomass this process converts biomass residues by fast pyrolysis into fast pyrolysis biooil fpbo subsequently the fpbo is fractionated based on chemical functionality yielding a reactive lignin fraction and a sugarrich fraction both being excellent starting materials to produce sustainable biobased chemicals materials the selected product lines fully exploit the unique chemical functionalities already present in biomass residues and organic waste streams moreover the lines are interlinked and output from one line will further improve the sustainability of the other waste water treatment and water reuse is integral part of the conceptnewwave aims at woodbased products for the construction industry including cross laminated timber clt to replace steel and concrete as structural components and modified wood to replace tropical hardwood or chemically treated wood for outdoor use medium density fibreboard mdf and plywood will be produced for interior usage toxic chemicals like formaldehyde and creosote will be replaced by nontoxic biobased alternatives a small building will be constructed with these materials to demonstrate the products and test durability the biobased chemicals can also be used as green solvents antifreeze coolant and in the bulk fine chemical industry the european market potential is enormous billion y range the ghg emission avoidance ranges from 30 to over 90 depending on replacement ratio and end application the individual manufacturing lines as well as the integrated value chain will be assessed in detail on technical economic social and environmental performance to ensure the production is truly sustainable
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capillary electrophoresis as a main pillar for the characterisation of nanoplastics released from singleuse and reusable plastic drinking bottles
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the advent of plastics to society has entailed a global dependence on this material special attention should be paid to nanoplastics which are present in bottled drinking water due to weathering during usage from a scientific point of view it is important to get an insight into the risks that nanoplastics may bring to human health analytical chemistry is called to provide a response to this actual problem with new methodologies to characterise nanoplastics that are released to water from commercial bottles the main goal of ce4plastics project is to advance thestateoftheart methods for identification and quantification of nanoplastics released to drinking water from singleuse and reusable plastic bottles in the short and longterm and raise awareness in the population about nanoplastic risks the feasibility of capillary electrophoresis to characterise nanoplastic particles will be investigated next bottle weathering during normal usage and its implications in nanoplastic release to bottled water will be assessed the project will be carried out at flemish institute for technological research vito in belgium with an european researcher resuming his path in research and innovation ce4plastics will give him an excellent opportunity to be engaged in a wide range of transferable and scientific skills and to lead a necessary breakthrough to promote nanoplastic separation quantification and position himself as a leading researcher in the future
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mobilizing european communities of practice in biobased systems for better governance and skills development networks in bioeconomy
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biogovnet project engages 10 experienced partners to mobilize local resources and stakeholders in eight eu states estonia italy netherland greece slovakia czech republic portugal and germany the project aims strategically to support the establishment of innovative governance models in bioeconomy to achieve betterinformed decisionmaking processes social engagement of all actors and uptake of sustainable innovations in bioeconomywith the specific objective to provide validated guidelines for bioeconomy training and mentoring based on case studies from 8 eu regions biogovnet undertakes to identify and assess from the perspective of using the good practices and successful case studies for novel training framework complete an assessment based on regional capacities opportunities barriers and potentials define regional needs and expectations local feedstock availabilities and use governance barriers social and economic landscape identify needs for skills required by the novel business models and related social measures to enable consumers industry and public bodies to switch to socially and environmentally responsible behaviour within their spheres eg regulatory measures corporate responsibility initiatives education and training the methodology of the project ensures the synergies between respective parties transparency of actions and inclusiveness of all actors incl the socially vulnerable groupsbased on the collected materials analyses and quintuple innovation helix approach the project develops guidelines for the setup of the modern and inclusive training and mentoring frameworks and programmes in specific european regions targeting the local biosystems regulators and policies for building the bridge between knowledge skills bioeconomy and good governance
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risk assessment tools for severe side effects after breast radiotherapy radiation safety through biological extended models and digital twins
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radiation protection and safety measures are essential to ensure adequate quality safety in radiotherapy rt side effects are systematically mitigated through optimisation and individualisationbreast cancer bca is the most common cancer in women in europe leading to millions of bca survivors in europe this group is projected to increase in the next decades randomised trials established the role of rt following breast surgery careful rt planning and delivery allow targeting the breast while minimising the dose to organs at risk yet some doses unavoidably reach the lung and the heart putting bca patients at risk for severe cardiac and pulmonary disease and second cancers quantitative personalised risk scores for late severe cardiacpulmonary diseasesecond cancers following rt would reveal opportunities to further mitigate the risk of side effects at the individual patient level risk scores would provide a quantitative guide when shaping the patients followup and screening program to assess the risk or presence of subclinical diseaseswithin tetris we propose to design and test quantitative personalised lowlevel risk scores based on doseresponse relationships already published in the literature and refined risk scores which merge patientspecific features from imaging genetics and transcriptomics with rt dosethe project also proposes to explore the opportunities and challenges of applying digital twins dts in rt safety we will use the historical cohort to develop the prototypes and evaluate the gain we can have using digital twins for risk assessment instead of modelbased risk scores using a prospective collection of detailed patient data we will demonstrate the possibility of refining dts allowing a deeper description of the single patient and a broader description of the patients followup the value of the refined dts could shape investments in data collection and computational resources for radioprotection
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the congoubangi watershed an interdisciplinary approach to the genesis of a linguistic accretion zone in central africa
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central africas congoubangi watershed spans multiple ecozones in the northern margins of the rainforest it is a major hotbed of linguistic cultural and human genetic diversity with deep occupation history this linguistic accretion zone is home to a complex mosaic of genealogically and typologically diverse languages spoken by smallsize communities with different societal organizations material cultures and subsistence specializations despite the myriad of new insights it could generate about language evolution and deep human past it is poorly known due to difficulty of access and an astonishingly intricate configuration the aim of congubangi is to understand the presentday interconnections between language material cultures and genes in the congoubangi watershed and project them as far back into the past as possible through a holistic localized and locallyenforced interdisciplinary approach the project teams core scientific expertise covers linguistics ethnoarchaeology and archaeology genetic and paleoenvironmental expertise is added through interuniversity collaboration congubangi will realize a breakthrough in our understanding of how linguistic diversity correlates with cultural and genetic diversity and why it originated and persisted in this specific ecoregion for millennia new bodies of evidence from mutuallyfeeding disciplines will be integrated to determine whether i language shift is an adaptive strategy in response to environmental stress and ii past environmental changes impacted the synchronic distribution of linguistic enclaves by untangling one of the most historically intricate areas of the continent it will contribute to scores of theoretical and methodological issues in a large array of disciplines and blaze research trails in previously unimaginable directions beyond research it will foster the preservation of smallscale autochthonous languages and cultures facing increasing extinction threats
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novel single photon sources based on electrical doped perovskite quantum dots
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future quantum technologies promise to deliver unprecedented computing power guarantee secure communications and yield ultrahigh precision measurements the keyelement of all quantum optical technologies is the single photon emitter however state of the art single photon sources still suffer from a slow photon emission rate hampering the application of quantum technologies in our everyday life moreover in quantum optics it is essential to be able to analyze quantum signatures of the emitted light from quantum dots qds and current experimental configurations offer limited capabilities for the metrology of quantumlight sources therefore eldopp will target the development of a novel approach based on electrical doping of perovskite quantum dots qds to boost their single photon emission properties and the implementation of a new detection system for the complete characterization of quantum optical properties of light emitted by qds the first aim of the project will be achieved through the realization of a solidstate device where an external electric field is directly applied to the perovskite qds using a parent structure of fieldeffect transistor fet to generate highly charged excitons with fast decay rate furthermore eldopp will take advantage from the fact that perovskite qds provide the fastest decay rate among the known qds so far offering the opportunity for the realization of the fastest single photon source at room temperature until now the second aim of eldopp will be accomplished via the implementation of a detection system based on a single photon avalanche diode spad array detector the data collected with this system will provide a complete characterization of the analyzed single photon emitter giving information on the lifetime antibunching effect and photon indistinguishability enabling also quantumimaging microscopy
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from conformal symmetries and integrability to the electronion collider
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the primary goal of this research proposal is to lay the foundations for precision predictions for the physics program in deepinelastic scattering dis at the electronioncollider eic the commissioning of the eic will open a new era in the exploration of the strong interaction physics and the hadron structure at an unprecedented level of detail this is expected to lead among other results to the clarification of the proton spin puzzle the crucial ingredient for the success of this undertaking is the ability to confront experimental data to precise predictions for a those benchmark processes which will form a core part of the eic physics program inclusive leptonhadron dis including polarized beams dis charm or bottomquark production deeplyvirtual compton scattering in offforward kinematics capitalizing on recent theoretical advances driven to a significant extent by the work of the pi this proposal outlines a challenging and ambitious program to advance quantum chromodynamics qcd perturbation theory in order to achieve a theoretical description of the key observables at the eic at percent level precision the proposal puts forward a novel research methodology based on the systematic use of conformal symmetry and integrability as realized in gauge theories with extended supersymmetry such as the n4 supersymmetric yangmills sym theory to reveal structural information on qcd results observables in leptonhadron dis are particularly well suited to turn the connections between n4 sym theory and qcd into a powerful computational tool which leads to significant simplifications due to the hidden symmetries underlying integrable systems progress in this direction will open new avenues for research and will establish new bridges between the scientific communities in phenomenology and mathematical physics the new qcd results will be used in the course of the project to explore precision phenomenology at the eic
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vibrational microrobots in viscoelastic biological tissues
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wireless microrobots hold great potential for minimallyinvasive medicine since they may allow for targeted drug delivery in vivo sensing stimulation and even new surgical procedures however the biggest hurdle for biomedical applications is the penetration of real biological media for instance mucus vitreous blood clots and tumour tissues most current micronanorobots can propel in water however the same propulsion mechanisms do not readily transfer to viscoelastic biological media one major bottleneck is that it is not possible to exert enough force for propulsion in a system that could one day also accommodate a human the overall goal of this proposal is to develop vibrational microdevices that can actively propel and wirelessly sense in viscoelastic biological tissues the excited mechanical vibration is coupled with the frequencydependent fluidic rheology to increase the energy release rate to reduce the penetration force needed for tissue rupture and thus to facilitate an easier penetration of the tissues we will investigate the fundamental mechanisms of propulsion at low reynolds number in viscoelastic materials the microrheology of the biological fluids will be measured and modelled and it will allow us to optimize the shape and gait of the microrobot to exploit the complex rheological properties of biological tissues and generate propulsion the proposed work will also advance threedimensional fabrication technologies for asymmetric micronanostructures as key elements to interact with tissues to facilitate efficient locomotion we will also develop novel sensing methods for in vivo sensing and localization of the microdevices our research will lead to a new class of microrobots the vibebots that will be able to actively penetrate real tissues and open up outstanding opportunities for useful biomedical applications
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advanced software tools for javascript developers
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modern webbased software uses the javascript programming language together with the nodejs framework and extensively rely on freely available thirdparty software libraries that provide common functionality these libraries are continuously improved and new versions are released frequently this massive reuse of libraries is essential to the productivity of software developers however the dependence on other peoples libraries opens the door to security vulnerabilities and programming errors that may have severe consequences to the applications and end users with current technology it is extremely difficult for the software developers to adapt programs to breaking changes in libraries avoid unintended breaking changes and investigate the possible consequences of security vulnerabilities in librariesthe erc project paw has delivered a range of novel program analysis techniques that can help javascript programmers by automating these complex tasks the analysis techniques have been implemented as prototype software tools and preliminary experimental results have demonstrated that they are effective on realworld software the proposed project pawtools aims to explore the commercial and innovative aspects of these scientific results by further developing the prototype tools into commercial products performing more extensive evaluations of their effectiveness and engaging with potential users and industry partners
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developmentally programmed pediatric sarcomas a versatile platform for drug discovery and molecular precision medicine
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pediatric sarcomas account for 20 of childhood cancers they have disappointing survival rates with very little therapeutic progress over the last three decades we clearly have to rethink the science and find new ways to tackle these devastating tumors i propose that new cellular models are needed that account for the developmental origins of pediatric sarcoma in order to accelerate drug discovery and molecular precision medicinefocusing on ewing sarcoma which is a developmental cancer caused by a known fusion oncogene expressed in unknown cellsoforigin we will pursue a build it to understand it approach and construct in vitro and in vivo tumor models starting from human pluripotent stem cells hpscs we will validate these models against our singlecell and spatial maps of ewing sarcoma tumors and we will pursue initial applications in academic drug discovery targeting the regulatory programs of ewing sarcoma cells metabolic dependencies of the tumor microenvironment and developmentally programmed tumors in their in vivo contextto build ewing sarcoma models in a molecular defined manner we will map oncogenecompetent cell states by inducing ewsfli1 expression in hpscbased models of human development aim 1 we will create supportive tumor microenvironments by 3d differentiation and crispr screening in stromal cells aim 2 finally we will evaluate the ability of in vitro models to form tumors in mice and we will pursue full in vivo modeling of ewing sarcoma using genetically engineered teratomas aim 3 compared to patientderived xenografts organoids or cell lines our approach captures early events of tumorigenesis providing complementary in vitro and in vivo models of ewing sarcoma for biomedical and translational research this approach will generalize to other tumor types as it takes the concept of developmental cancers seriously and operationalizes it using cellular programming and highthroughput functional biology
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twophoton excited nearinfrared emissive multifunctional gold nanoclusters for imaging and photothermal treatment for alzheimers disease
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neurodegenerative diseases are a global epidemic with significant health social and economic implications and despite intensive research there is still no cure for them alzheimers disease ad is the most prevalent neurological disorder having symptoms of the progressive memory loss neuronal cell death loss of immune response and cognitive function eventually leading to patient death amyloid a protein is the main neuropathic agent in ad and aggregation of a plaques are found in the brain tissue of patients suffering from this disease the application of nanomaterials has emerged as a new frontier in nanomedicine for the treatment of ad among various nanomaterials ultrasmall gold nanoclusters au ncs may serve as a promising choice for the diagnosis and treatment of ad from the very early stage which can be well justified by the advantages of au ncs in terms of their diverse physicochemical properties biocompatibility and biodistribution high surface to volume ratio ease for functionalisation and drug loading bloodbrain barrier bbb translocation and the possibility of twophoton excitation the main objective of our research is to advance in the development of new biocompatible multifunctional nanomaterials for the detection of amyloids with high spatial resolution and the subsequent degradation of amyloid aggregates using a noninvasive approach in this regard the blinking and nonlinear optical properties of the au ncs enable its potential for nanoscopic imaging of amyloid and twophoton photothermal ablation of amyloid aggregates another advantage of the proposed multifunctional nanomaterials is that they can also be used as drug delivery vehicles to penetrate the cell membrane and bbb to deliver antiamyloid drugs that exhibit effective imagingguided photothermal efficacy this research will use stateoftheart technology to develop a multifunctional phototheranostic nanomedicine for the detection and treatment of amyloid diseases
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accelerating datafication for support of eu health priorities greening of biobanks and integrated approach to one health
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since its creation the biobanking and biomolecular resources research infrastructure european research infrastructure consortium bbmrieric has made a remarkable contribution to european and international cuttingedge research as one of the largest ri for health research and in life sciences in europe 2023 marking its 10year anniversary bbmrieric is facing a unique moment to look into the longterm future and to develop its strategy for the next decade to ensure longterm sustainability the evolvebbmri project aims to further develop bbmrieric for the benefit of its scientific communities and users increase its capacity to serve eu policy priorities and further deepen its collaboration with industry the project is structured in four thematic pillars 1 acceleration of datafication of biobanks and biomolecular resources to enable reproducible advanced medical research in support of eu health priorities 2 teaming with industry towards greener biobanking 3 longterm sustainability measures for bbmri addressing also ri landscape gaps and 4 strengthened approach for career paths training and outreach activities to maximise impact the project will ensure the implementation of specific results on 6 key target groups a scientific community universities hospitals research institutes b bbmrieric national nodes biobanks in europe and beyond c industry and private foundations d policy and decisionmakers at national and european levels e european and international networks and f donors patients and citizensevolvebbmri activities and outputs within its four pillars will increase the longterm sustainability of bbmrieric and will thus contribute to a better structured and strengthened european research infrastructure landscape ultimately the project will contribute to increase the scientific excellence to better tackle scientific and societal challenges and to expand and secure global competitiveness of the european research area
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color in a new light origins trade and cultural significance of ancient pigments
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the ancient world was fascinated by color people processed certain raw materials to use them as pigments their material qualities and provenance mattered yet little is known about where these materials came from some might have been broadly available others rare and traded far along the way from resource to artwork much is still unknown a plethora of mineral pigments was used in the past materials were processed ranging from powdered cinnabar to pyrotechnological multicomponent materials they came together to color walls and sculpture alike and now enable the understanding of interaction across production technologies trade networks and cultural relations in a new way so far identifying the provenance of pigments relies on metal reference but metals and pigments are not the same it is thus essential to develop a pigmentspecific reference database paired with a proper toolset to push this new avenue in archaeological science to its full potential among other pigments egyptian blue serves as a cornerstone indicator of crosscraft interaction between metal and glass work hue probes material provenance and production technology by looking at the mediterranean from the bronze age to the roman period until the 1st century bcad a time of great political reorganization and significant change in the organization of pigment production hue analyzes raw and processed pigments from original artifacts workshops and trade nodes to bridge the gap from resource market and workshop to art the results are not only relevant for polychromy research but also for an archaeological evaluation of workshops discussion of market and trade network theories and peopleenvironment interaction the pi has already shown the significance of this approach in pilot studies supported by a network of international specialists new light will shine on ancient pigments to reveal the cultural significance of color in economic and technological developments
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understanding how long noncoding rnas adapt the adipocyte for specialised lipid storage and breakdown
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energy is stored in adipocytes as a large uniocular lipid droplet which can be broken down into fatty acids fas and released into the circulation when needed this specialised lipid storage and breakdown requires dynamic organisation of metabolic enzymes and cofactors around the large lipid droplet for metabolic homeostasis in obesity the adipocyte dysfunctions resulting in high spontaneous release of fas this chronic release and elevation of systemic fas is a major driver of systemic insulin resistance type 2 diabetes and other cardiometabolic diseasesi postulate that long noncoding rnas lncrnas interact with the metabolic machinery within the adipocyte to organize cell and stimulationspecific interactomes channelling substrate flux within the cell adipocytes express over 4000 lncrnas many of which are unique to humans and this cell type however whether these lncrnas contribute to the adipocytes specialised lipid metabolism in health and disease is not understood this proposed research aims to address this questioni have already developed key methodologies to study lncrnas in human adipocytes including a novel technique called troops that identifies specific lncrnainteracting proteins leveraging an extensive bank of white adipose tissue biopsies from uniquely characterized patients i will identify diseaseregulated lncrnas and test how they function in human adipocytes i will use gene editing techniques and lipidmetabolomics analysis to define the role of these lncrnas in lipid storage and fa releasefurthermore i will use proteinlncrna complex purification combined with advanced microscopy techniques to reveal how lncrnas can sequester protein complexes into phaseseparated organelles and organize adipocyte lipid metabolism these insights will provide a paradigm shift in understanding how lncrnas enable the adipocyte to perform specialized functions and new generalizable findings for how lncrnas contribute to cell function
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residue management in the olive oil industry valorisation and environmental protection
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the main objective of remoove is to study existing and novel opportunities for an integral valorisation of alperujo a residue from the extraction of olive oil that creates significant environmental impacts the aim of the valorisation is to obtain compounds and materials of high interest and minimise the environmental impacts associated with alperujo management the following valorisation routes will be investigated use of clay and fresh alperujo to manufacture green roofs recovery of compounds of interest from the liquid fraction of degreased alperujo by thermal hydrolysis production of lowcost adsorbent materials from the solid fraction resulting from the hydrolysis process of degreased alperujo for the removal of contaminants from wastewater and production of fuel gas by gasification of the solid fraction obtained from thermal hydrolysis of the degreased alperujo once the valorisation processes are defined and have been tested in a laboratory scale a thorough environmental impact study will be carried out to ensure that the sustainability performance of the proposed alternative is superior than that of the current waste management strategy for this the lifecycle assessment methodology will be used to evaluate environmental impacts for all relevant impact categories from the moment alperujo is obtained until alperujo and all its byproducts are managed a socioeconomic assessment and resilience risk analysis will also be performed in the last stages of the project to ensure the solutions proposed are viable at an industrial scale it is expected to integrate the alperujo valorisation processes into the olive oil industry upgrading existing manufacturing plants to olive oil biorefineries and therefore supporting the circularity in this key sector in the economy of southern europe
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ddgmri for cancer detection a novel medical imaging approach that correlates to fdgpet without ionising radiation
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positron emission tomography pet measurements of 2deoxy218ffluorodglucose fdg uptake have been widely used clinically for tumour staging prognosis and treatment monitoring where it can be more sensitive at detecting treatment response than magnetic resonance imaging mri and computerised tomography ct based evaluations of tumour size 2deoxydglucose dg and fdg are nonmetabolisable derivatives of dglucose that get trapped in the cells of active or malignant tissues even though highly sensitive the ionising radiation associated with fdgpet limits its frequent application typically not more than 23 examinations per year and its use in populations such as children and pregnant women who may otherwise benefit from this valuable and unique diagnostic imaging examination as such alternative techniques are highly demanded the ddgmri project aims at providing the benefits of fdgpet without ionising radiation we propose an mribased imaging agent and technique that will provide petlike images with mri without ionising radiation to this end we will make use of 1 a novel dg analogue that is uniformly labelled with deuterons d82deoxydglucose and 2 rapid and sensitive deuterium mri schemes targeted at demonstrating the uptake of this agent in malignant tissues further to intravenous administration the expected spatial resolution will exceed that of fdgpet 23 mm in plane in a scan time of about 2 min with a clinically acceptable and commercially relevant dose of the labelled compound ddgmri is likely to be quickly adopted by medical centres as it does not require significant hardware changes does not change the mri suite workflow and is expected to cost the same as a pet scan this consortium comprises six partners two from industry from five countries enthusiastic about making ddgmri a medical reality for cancer detection and treatment monitoring
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interoperable tools for networkaware ledgerbased local energy sharing and flexibility management leveraging user engagement
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to reach netzero emissions by 2050 annual clean energy deployment needs to triple by 2030 two major challenges hinder progress grid operators lack the tools to manage distributed energy resources effectively and citizens are not equipped to effectively participate in energy markets particularly in peertopeer trading which would foster individual investment in ders while the eu has established a legal framework for energy communities its implementation has been restrictive leading to energy communities based on predetermined communitylevel prices and effectively peertomarket rather than true p2p trading the intelligent project will provide advanced p2p technology and demonstrate its benefits in 4 diverse eu communities to encourage regulators in eu member states to empower more advanced local energy sharing and trading intelligents comprehensive p2p trading infrastructure includes interoperable decentralised energy exchange components secure data exchange and optimised trading and flexibility management for citizens and grid operators these tools will be open source and protocol and regulationagnostic customisable for specific market requirementsthe project leverages and extends the capabilities of the gsy dex an opensource p2p exchange software which employs blockchain technology to enable gridaware secure and automated exchange while fully accounting for network constraints innovations centres on a bottomup assetbased energy market design with sophisticated aiml and blockchainpowered trading and flexibility mechanisms supported by dynamic grid fee models and interoperability with grid operators asset management and other related services intelligents goal is to advance p2p energy trading technology making it more accessible secure and efficient to optimise the economic and environmental benefits for citizens while supporting grid operators to better address grid stability and congestion management
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exploring the mechanisms of longterm tumour evolution and genomic instability in marine transmissible cancers
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cancers are proliferative outgrowths of abnormal cells driven by a selfish evolutionary programme most cancers arise from and remain within the bodies of their respective host individuals rarely however cancers may escape their hosts to become transmissible cancers infectious cell lineages that spread between individuals by direct transfer of cancer cells as parasitic cancers capable of surviving for millennia transmissible cancers offer a unique model for exploring how mutation selection and cellular processes mould and constrain selfish tumour evolutionmarine bivalves shellfish including clams mussels and cockles are affected by at least 10 transmissible cancers which spread via waterborne cell transfer the recurrent emergence of longlived cancers in shellfish provides a valuable resource for comparative studies aiming to probe the basic mechanisms of tumour evolution including extreme genomic instability yet the evolutionary histories of these cancers are poorly understoodmy vision is to elucidate the origins and evolution of marine transmissible cancers by conducting a largescale comparative genomic study of these cancers my aims are to1 understand how transmissible cancers arise mutate and spread under the sea2 identify the mechanisms and consequences of genomic instability in transmissible cancersmy research approach will involve extensive tumour sampling across continents generation of highquality bivalve genome assemblies application of stateoftheart technologies including laser microdissection and singlecell sequencing to hundreds of tumours development of specialised methods for comparative cancer genome analysisthe intrinsic heterogeneity and short lifespans of most cancers may obscure their underlying biological patterns by examining the convergent evolution of 10 longlived cancers through a comparativegenomics lens i intend to deliver fundamental insights into cancer biology and evolution
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hidden in the noise transient details of nanoparticlecatalyzed reactions under challenging conditions
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metal nanoparticlebased catalysts drive our chemical industry and will be an essential tool to shift away from fossilresources despite their exigence new catalysts are often still found by trial and error rather than designed rationally although recent fundamental studies from our own research and others yield important new insights there is a lack of methodology to investigate the subtle transient details missing in our understanding at the very high pressures that are often industrially relevant details such as reaction mechanisms or dynamic surface equilibria at more than 100 bar are evidently greatly relevant to rationally designing better catalysts yet have so far been outside of the realm of experimental characterization which hampers progress our key objective is to generate fundamental understanding of supported metal nanoparticle catalyst dynamics at work under relevant highpressure conditions up to 100 bar with a strong focus on studying the haberbosch reaction to achieve this we will utilize three recent developments we will 1 employ specially designed reactors where laminar flow standing wave stimulation will be used 2 perform hightime resolution resonantsurfaceenhanced infrared spectromicroscopy and spatially resolved quickxray absorption spectroscopy and 3 use our noise classification algorithm and further statistical data mining for quantification of surface site participation and dynamics in this way we will be able to differentiate important but miniscule reaction details from noise these novel methods will be combined to gain insight into dynamic active sites and equilibria that may exist at high pressure the new insights will shift our fundamental knowledge from static approximation to dynamic reality and will offer direction in a new path of activity design improvements dynamic site tailoring
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carbonnegative compression dominant structures for decarbonized and deconstructable concrete buildings
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carbcomn addresses a disruptive innovation in zerocarbon concrete loadbearing structures combination of columns beams slabs or walls by setting forth a new digital aec design paradigm that is fully compatible with concrete that uses co2 as raw material and is carbonnegative digital methodologies are exploited and developed to realise an innovative carbonneutral construction system implementing structural geometries that are compression dominant optimise the co2 sequestration capability and make use of demountable discrete blocks combined with system redundancy the latter will be assisted by the combined use of funicular shapes and posttensioning with shape memory alloys to handle the complex geometries in combination with a carbonnegative concretelike material an innovative digital pipeline is developed that incorporates for example computed tomography topology optimization and 3d construction using co2 sequestration to harden the concretelike material for widely used load bearing structures will reduce embodied greenhouse gas emissions in an unprecedented way the material design incorporating recycled materials and byproducts derived from other industrial processes eg slags and ashes will equally reduce raw material usage the intrinsic durability properties by introducing a system that is not susceptible to rebar corrosion and is deconstructable will achieve both long service life and circularity to further reduce the environmental impact of the built environment the overall superiority of the proposed system with respect to the current state of practice will be demonstrated through a full life cycle analysis throughout the carbcomn project compliance with relevant standards of building operational performance will be established and designers architects engineers will be enabled to use the novel design paradigm for inspiring buildings
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shaping the future of flexible geothermal energy
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flexgeo aims to develop innovative geothermal energy system designs for maximized systems performance and flexibility pathing the way for the market entry of commercial modular reversible orc systems will be together with advanced smart control strategies and operational tools the backbone of our concept the proposed keyinnovations will make geothermal systems more flexible more efficient more economically viable and adaptable for an implementation and market update across europe and beyond a modular rev 200 kwel orc unit with advanced control strategies and operational tool will be installed and demonstrated at a real district heating system at the tum campus in garching germany the firsttime demonstration of this innovative technology on a trl 7 level will directly path the way to its market entry after the project since due to the attractive modular approach the demonstrator already has the same capacity as the future commercial product furthermore innovative geothermal system designs considering high and lowtemperature underground thermal energy storage utes systems advanced closedloop systems ags and enhanced flexibility of district heating dh and district cooling dc networks dhcn are pathing the way to a broad spread of the flexgeo solutions across europe and the world resulting in largescale co2 emission reductions
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permafrost pollution health
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permafrost underlies 22 of the northern hemispheres exposed land surface and is thawing at an alarming rate as a direct consequence of climate change permafrost thaw releases large quantities of organic matter and contaminants into the environment contaminants including heavy metals persistent organic pollutants and microbiological agents locked in permafrost are a risk for both human and animal health in addition permafrost thaw dramatically impacts infrastructure in local communities with wideranging consequences for health economy and society yet the social physical and health components of permafrost thaw have traditionally been studied in isolation leading to inadequate policy options that ignore the holistic nature of the threat there is a need for an integrated and participatory approach to the complex issues at the overlap between climate change permafrost thaw infrastructure damage contaminants health and wellbeing and for solutions founded on the cultural natural and social frameworks of local communitiesilluq is an interdisciplinary project rooted in participatory research with local stake and rightsholders its mission is to tackle this need by providing the first holistic approach to permafrost thaw pollution one health and wellbeing in the arctic and delivering timely products on the risks from contaminant release infrastructure failure and ecosystem changes to stakeholdersilluqs endeavor is a direct answer to the pressing needs of communities on potentially disappearing permafrost it targets the missing link between studies performed by scientists engineers and consultants in local communities and solutions with local stake and rightsholders focusing on the longterm implications of decisionmaking in the context of permafrost thaw a time frame generally overlooked in existing governance frameworks
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analysing frozen foraminifera by cryostage laicpms neogene co2 patterns cycles and climate sensitivity
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knowledge of past concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide co2 has transformed our understanding of earths climate past present and future ice cores have yielded 800000 years of high resolution and high precision data revolutionising earth system science marine sediment records provide the opportunity for highly resolved records of ocean and past ocean ph and therefore ocean and atmosphere co2 content over millions of years by means of the 11bph proxy but present progress is currently hampered by large sample size requirements and intensive laboratory techniques limiting throughput and applicability innovation is therefore required to answer a number of key questions including how do spatial variations in ocean carbon flux cause natural climate variability and does climate sensitivity vary with background state by analysing small samples frozen into a blankfree ice puck forcry exploits the increased sensitivity of laser ablation 11b analysis to enable the next generation of past climate data to be recovered this novel approach allows analyses to be conducted on 20 individual plankton representing a 10fold reduction in sample size but while maintaining precision additionally this approach removes costly chemical purification steps and leads to higher throughput which makes highresolution co2 reconstructions using the 11bph proxy a viable option to augment and extend the ice core co2 records forcry has 4 objectives i to develop this novel technique and optimise the hardware for efficient data collection from carbonates and other archives ii to calibrate through culture and field sample collection the 11bph proxy in multiple species of foraminifera iii to map ocean ph change in four dimensions using a data inversion model and iv to reconstruct co2 change at high resolution over key past intervals eg midmiocene that are highly relevant to a warm future thus probing the state dependency of climate sensitivity
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understanding and modifying cellfate transitions during plant grafting
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the remarkable regenerative capacity of plants to join wounded tissues together through a process known as grafting has been extensively used in agriculture to combine the best properties of two different plants into a single plant although grafting has been practiced for thousands of years many agriculturally important plants are not possible to graft one of the major limitations that prevent us from improving grafting efficiency is our poor understanding of the molecular mechanism of plant regeneration when tissues are wounded and joined for grafting the differentiated cells near the wound site modify their identity and acquire a dedifferentiated fate these pluripotent cells then differentiate to form the missing cell types leading to tissue regeneration however it remains unknown how cells dedifferentiate in response to wounding and how they differentiate to heal tissues the major problem to be addressed in this project this gap in knowledge will be addressed by using multidisciplinary approaches that include my experience and skills in plant regeneration molecular genetics and advanced microscopy and the host labs expertise in plant grafting transcriptomics and genetics of various plant species the outcome of this research is expected to enhance the fundamental knowledge in cellfate transition and vascular regeneration and provide powerful tools for improving grafting in various plant species the project will allow me to be trained as an independent researcher in plant grafting and vascular regeneration at the same time the host lab will benefit from my expertise in plant regeneration and microscopy
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brain mechanisms underlying mathematics and its acquisition
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mathematics is a fundamental tool by which we understand the universe yet its cognitive and brain mechanisms are vastly understudied i propose a systematic study of the human representation of mathematical concepts and their growth with education the project will test the language of thought theory according to which humans share core concepts with other animals numbers objects shapes spatial maps but the growth of math relies on a human symbolic composition system that recursively recombines those concepts into arbitrarily more complex expressions work package wp 1 will generate maps of mathematical concepts in adults varying in education using highresolution singlesubject 7t fmri and meg the impact of education will be studied by testing concepts ranging from elementary to advanced and by comparing adults whose education varies from highschool to professional math blind and highfunctioning autism subjects will also be tested wp2 will focus on 5 concepts of central importance in math geometrical shape pattern set number line and graph for each we will map developmental change by acquiring behavioral and fmri data in adults and children the model predicts that concept acquisition can be modeled as a construction of increasingly complex mental expressions whose complexity is predicted by minimal description length mdl wp3 will map the brain changes during the acquisition of a math concept experiments will test the role of feedback repetition retrieval practice sleep conceptual diversity and age in facilitating behavioral and brain measures of conceptual change finally wp4 will examine whether artificial neural networks can capture the above results and investigate how these networks can be enhanced to achieve humanlike performanceoverall the results will shed light on how mathematical education changes the human brain and how conceptual change occurs thus paving the way to reallife educational applications in schools
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intensity correlations for stars
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the pioneering experiments of intensity correlations by hanburybrown and twiss more than 50 years ago not only allowed to measure the angular diameter of many bright stars but it also motivated roy glauber to develop his quantum formalism of photon statistics the advent of direct optical interferences of light collected by different telescopes developed in the beginning of the 70s with superior performances in terms of signal to noise ratio and correspondingly reduced required observation time put an end to these first attempts of intensity correlation imaging for astrophysics state of the art optical interference imaging is however limited by accessible baselines and the required mechanical precision for optical delay lines are limited in particular due to atmospheric fluctuations and at short wavelengths in ic4stars we will use modern photon counting techniques to perform quantum optics measurements and probe quantum systems in astrophysics a first target will be a quantum degenerate fermi gaz of electrons a white dwarf whose angular diameter is out of reach for direct optical imaging techniques a second goal will be the search for quantum sources of radiation by looking for random lasing in astrophysics to be detected by second order photon correlation
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coherent steering of order via lattice resonances
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discovering methods that facilitate ultrafast and minimallydissipative switching of spontaneous ordering represents one of the most prominent research directions in modern condensed matter physics in recent years breakthrough experiments have revealed that circularlypolarized femtosecond pulses in the visible spectral range can nonthermally perturb magnetization via the ultrafast inverse faraday effect however the associated pathway of energy flow from light to electrons to spins incurs substantial parasitic energy losses while simultaneously restricting the functional duration and amplitude of the spin stimulus to the highlylimited lifetime and strength of the photoexcited electrons aiming to unveil an alternative and potentially superior method for the selective switching of magnetic order this project will explore the possibility of manipulating and ultimately reversing magnetization using left or righthanded circularlypolarized optical phonons driven at resonance to coherently pump such phonons this project will exploit the intense and narrowband infrared light pulses delivered by freeelectron lasers the ensuing rotational motion of ions in a manner analogous to the ultrafast barnett effect is predicted to temporarily create a magnetic moment that could be sufficiently strong enough by virtue of the longer lifetime and nonlinear character of optical phonons to drive largeamplitude permanent reorientation of magnetization by constructing stateoftheart multicolor pumpprobe techniques operational in both stroboscopic and singleshot modes the existence character and universality of this neverseenbefore source for magnetic recording and processing of data will be discovered while the challenging and highrisk experiments proposed here explore largelyuncharted physics they could reveal a disruptive new tool that enables the highlyefficient ultrafast and directional switching of spontaneous order
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phase separation in metallic glasses design phase stability and properties
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in recent years much attention has been given to phase separated metallic glasses mgs which provide a unique opportunity for designing composites or alloys with hierarchical microstructure at different length scales the structure and physical properties of phase separated mgs have characteristics different from those of other mgs many theoretical efforts have been undertaken to understand the origin of phase separation in mgs yet the understanding of the mechanism is insufficientthis project aims to synthesize new mgs by alloying addition aiming to understand the genesis of phase separation the effect of alloying addition on phase separation and properties will be investigated such studies will help to understand the structure microstructureproperty corelations the results of these investigations will be used as a guideline to modify the synthesis process to accomplish the main objectives namely to obtain materials with desired properties novel glassynanocrystalline dualphase mgs with high toughness and ductility will be designed that will provide an important insight for industrial application in addition we will explore the possibility of fabricating nanoporous foams and nanofilters in mgs the nanoporous network structure in phase separating mgs has potential to be applied for many engineering applications the project will be conducted at erich schmid institute of materials science of the austrian academy of sciences esiöaw under prof jürgen eckerts supervision esiöaw has internationallyleading expertise in the associated areas and prof eckert is one of the worlds leading scientists in mgs and nanostructured materials based on the high reputation of the host and the strong track record of the applicant it is believed that this research will bring a significant impact for europe to have a leading position in science and for the host and applicant to have an excellent career development
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the political culture of postimperial intervention the case of spain and the south american republics of the pacific 18331868
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the project postempire will analyse the ideas and cultural representations that shaped the interventionist foreign policy deployed by the spanish monarchy in the republics of chile peru and ecuador during the elizabethan period 18331868 i will reconstruct the doctrinal developments of panhispanism free trade imperialism antirepublicanism and navalism to understand how they structured the political culture of postimperial interventionism legitimising and guiding spains attempts to establish a sphere of influence in its former possessions by studying a littleconsidered example of postimperial interventionism i aim to stimulate discussions at the academic and media levels that allow comparison with other analogous cases postempire will achieve the following research objectives ro1 to explain the geopolitical imaginaries that gave rise to spanish postimperial interventionism ro2 assess the weight that the examples of the british empire france and the united states had in the strategic culture of informal spanish imperialism ro 3 to gain access to an interdisciplinary training experience that will allow me to enrich my knowledge as a historian of europeanamerican relations with the perspectives of transpacific historiography political theory and socioconstructivist international relations theory ro 4 to contribute to elaborating an interdisciplinary theorisation of the dynamics that have characterised postimperial conflicts throughout contemporary history ro 5 to enrich general social knowledge about the dynamics that govern postimperial conflicts seeking to raise awareness among public decisionmakers and civil society of their importance for the strategic compass for the eu and european security and foreign policy
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enzymatic co2 capture in a rotating packed bed and electrocatalytic co2 reduction to useful products
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reuse proposes the development of an advanced co2 capture and utilization concept where a rotating packed bed rpb is used that employs immobilized carbonic anhydrase ca in combination with advanced solvents while the captured co2 is transformed into carbon monoxide co or formic acid fa in a co2 reduction co2r cell to deliver highquality flue gas to the rpbco2r system the team will consider several insitu strategies of particles abatement and process optimization design of experiments coupled with propagation of error combined with the synergetic effect of using biomass blends then the process employs a rpb where the used enzyme is immobilized in cellulosic fibers on the packing material of the rpb while a solvent is used to capture and transfer the co2 into a co2r cell the immobilized ca allows the enhancement of absorption kinetics while avoiding the need for an unregulated freeflowing suspension of ca and solvent the co2r cell employs novel electrocatalysts electrodeposition and plasma methods to produce fa and co which are chosen here as they necessitate a 2e transfer and are the only co2r products that can compete with conventional production processes reuse will prove its enhanced performance under relevant operating conditions by testing a an 80 kwth pilotscale fluidized bed unit enabling cogasificationcombustion runs as needed at multiple operating conditions b an rpb absorber with fiberimmobilized ca and c a co2r cell with advanced catalysts after validation of the single units a pilotscale fluidized bed combustion unit will be integrated with the rpb absorber and co2r cell for integrated system validation in a trl 5 pilot plant that will enable continuous operation reuse strategy includes life cycle and technoeconomic assessments as well as socioeconomic aspects including sdgs and impacts when applying such solutions in regions in transition from fossil fuels
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nanoscale virus imaging xray microscope based on incoherent diffraction
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coronavirus disease covid19 is an infectious disease that emerged in late 2019 by march 2020 the outbreak was declared a devastating pandemic and clearly illustrated the threat that viruses pose to our society the characterization of viral structures and the identification of key proteins involved in each step of the cycle of infection are crucial to developing treatments yet imaging single viruses can only be performed in a few specialized centers in europe while every hospital could benefit from it nanoxcan proposes to develop a tabletop virus imaging xray microscope with foreseeable impact as revolutionary as the invention of superresolved fluorescence microscopy paving the way towards determination of structure and dynamics of matter to a large community for this purpose we will develop an original digital laser that delivers on a daily operation subwavelength focusing reaching relativistic intensities at mhz repetition rates this will be used to create a nanosource of hard xrays from the kalpha plasma emission of metallic nanotargets at an average power comparable to that of a synchrotron beamline we will capitalize on this high brilliance high average power hard xray source to perform lensless nanoscale biomedical imaging based on recent findings in incoherent imaging and machine learning all these ingredients will create a unique nanoscopy platform that our consortium will illustrate by imaging a single virus in the future our xray idi microscope could help to study mechanisms involved in viral infection and antiviral design xrays have the advantage of performing insitu nondestructive and noninvasive imaging over competing techniques nanoxcan will create a transformative positive effect on our economy and society by proposing this new technology for single virus imaging
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analytical approaches for the assessment of human exposure to polyhalogenated alkanes pxas
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chlorinated paraffins cps are polychlorinated linear chain alkanes with high production volumes used as flame retardants and plasticizers in a wide array of consumer goods cps may be released from treated goods and have become widely distributed in the environment and human tissues humans are exposed to cps via contaminated indoor dust and food while certain cps have been registered as united nations persistent organic pollutants pops and their usage restricted due to well documented toxic and bioaccumulative properties recent evidence has suggested that banned cps may have been replaced by compounds known as polyhalogenated alkanes pxas which share very similar chemical structures to cps differing only by the addition of bromine atoms both cps and pxas comprise of mixtures of thousands of isomers making analysis and quantification highly complicated a recent pilot study of pxas in indoor dust revealed that the replacement compounds may be present at similar levels as banned cp groups based on the physicochemical similarities pxas are predicted to share similar bioaccumulative and toxic properties as banned cps but have not been studied widely this research projects aims to develop the first analytical procedures for quantification of pxas in indoor dust and generate methods for assessing the occurance of pxas in a variety of environmental matrices measurements in indoor dust samples from europe and the united states of america will be used to conduct a worldfirst human exposure assessment for pxas developed methods will then be applied for retrospective screening of pxas in archived data files to provide a broad snapshot of pxa contamination in food and the environment for the first time the outcomes of this project are intended to characterize the current contamination status of pxas in indoor dust food and the environement with the objective of public health protection against potentially hazardous chemicals
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pep4lep 20 chemoprohylaxis for leprosy comparing the effectiveness and feasibility of a communitybased intervention to a health centrebased intervention in ethiopia mozambique and tanzania
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background leprosy is a significant public health problem early detection treatment and prevention are crucial to reduce transmission and disabilities the world health organization who recommends singledose rifampicin postexposure prophylaxis sdrpep for screened contacts of leprosy patients the pep4lep 20 study builds upon the edctp2pep4lep project to identify the most effective intervention to screen individuals for leprosy other skin neglected infectious diseases skinnids and common skin diseases and to provide sdrpep the study takes place in leprosy highendemic areas in ethiopia tanzania and mozambique it determines which intervention has most effect on leprosy case finding and detection delay however the covid19 pandemic hampered the initial pep4lep study through delayed interventions and medication shortages affecting the main outcome indicator case detection delay methods pep4lep 20 is a twoarm clusterrandomized implementation trial to compare two interventions 1 a communitybased skin camp intervention screening 100 leprosy patients community contacts for leprosy and other skin diseases and administering sdrpep and 2 a health centrebased screening intervention inviting leprosy patients household contacts to health centres for screening and sdrpep to ensure a scientific sound analysis pep4lep 20 collects additional data increasing the sample size by 25 to understand the pandemics effects and enable analysis with and without covid19 influences skin camp organization skinnid distribution health staff capacity and acceptability will also be studied results will be modelled to assess the longterm impact related to costs impact pep4lep 20 results will reflect scientific societal and economic impact towards reduced leprosy transmission they will be disseminated to all stakeholders scientists policymakers who health staff affected communities ngos and the general public in the eu and africa
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reconciling citizens with the tradeoffs of democracy attitudes toward democracy under rising politicization
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democracies involve tradeoffs since all their desirable qualities cannot be simultaneously maximized hard choices must be made in order to balance democratic principles such as popular sovereignty and the rule of law or freedom and political equalitythese tradeoffs would not be problematic as long as citizens and political leaders were open to compromise and accept that democracy requires a delicate balancing of virtues the politicization of these tradeoffs in recent events such as brexit or polands judicial reform suggests that this is likely not the case however we still know very little about the positions of citizens and parties regarding democratic tradeoffs how these contribute to citizens increasing discontent with democracy how the rising politicization of the tradeoffs of democracy might exacerbate these dynamics and whether it is possible to curb this processto investigate these questions this project 1 elaborates a conceptual map of democratic tradeoffs and empirically examines citizens preferences and parties positions on them 2 analyzes the determinants of citizens democratic tradeoff preferences and how the interplay between these preferences and parties politicization of these tradeoffs affects individuals support and satisfaction with democracy 3 examines how citizens can be reconciled with the idea that some democratic qualities cannot be simultaneously maximized the empirical analysis focuses on 15 european countries and implements an integrative multimethod approach combining crosssectional and panel surveys content analysis and experimentsthe proposed project breaks new theoretical and methodological ground in the study of political culture it brings the inherent tensions of democracy to the forefront and develops new tools for the measurement of tradeoff preferences and their consequences
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machine learning in science and society a dangerous toy
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deep learning dl models are encroaching on nearly all our knowledge institutions ever more scientific fieldsfrom medical science to fundamental physicsare turning to dl to solve longstanding problems or make new discoveries at the same time dl is used across society to inform and provide knowledge we urgently need to evaluate the potentials and dangers of adopting dl for epistemic purposes across science and society this project uncovers the epistemic strengths and limits of dl models that are becoming the single most way we are structuring all our knowledge and it does so by starting with an innovative hypothesis that dl models are toy models a toy model is a type of highly idealized model that greatly distorts the gritty details of the real world every scientific domain has their own toy models that are used to play around with different features gaining insight into complex phenomena conceptualizing dl models as toy models exposes the epistemic benefits of dl but also the enormous risk of overreliance since toy models are so divorced from the real world how do we know they are not leading us astray toy addresses this fundamental issue toy 1 identifies interlocking model puzzles that face dl models and toy models alike 2 develops a theory of dl toy models in science and society based on the function of their idealizations and 3 develops a philosophical theory for evaluating the epistemic value of dl toy models across science and society in so doing toy solves existing problems answers open questions and identifies new challenges in philosophy of science on the nature and epistemic value of idealization and toy models
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development of chemical looping gasification of microalgae for the 3rdgeneration biofuels production
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global warming is leading to serious climate consequences worrying the world whats worse the global co2 budget will be used up soon likely before 2030 therefore actions for co2 mitigation are urgently needed to meet the agreed climate targets negative emissions technologies nets are possibly the only implementable option to tackle this problem in such short period this project stands on a novel nets technology called chemical looping gasification clg and aims at producing the 3rdgeneration biofuels g3biof clg is an unmixed gasification using oxygen carrier to transfer oxygen for gasification thus fuel and air never mix in light of this unique feature the gasification product is absent of n2 dilution thus the co2 capture is inherent and in the ashfree air reactor heatexchanger corrosion is less possible microalgae is biomass a major source for g3biof but it has very high content of problematic ash impurities however clg is hypothesized capable to handle this fuel in addition to its negative co2 emissions this project will first select suitable oxygen carrier for microalgaeclg through intensive experiments in a batch fluidizedbed reactor and an 15 kw continuous pilot the selected oxygen carrier will be used in a 50 kw dual fluidizedbed pilot for proof of concept and performance optimization a process model with reaction kinetics details will be established and used to analyze the technology integration with downstream processes finally life cycle assessment lca will be applied to the process chain to evaluate the environmental impacts this is expected to identify the most promising integration having the best economic and lowest environmental impact through the project the applicant will progress as a scientist and gain at least skills of lca complex pilot operation tar analysis this project is ambitious for a much greener production of biofuels and the results are important to power a sustainable future
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cyclic nucleotides as second messengers in plants
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multicellularity in plants and animals arose independently as reflected in dramatically different signalling mechanism makeups intracellular signallings central paradigm in animals is the concept of second messengers most prominently camp and cgmp contrastingly in plants campcgmp are not part of mainstream ideas on signallingour recent unexpected identification of camp and cgmp acting in the canonical signalling for the phytohormone auxin inspired a paradigmshifting hypothesis that camp and cgmp act as largely unappreciated versatile second messengers in multiple plant signalling pathways this would dramatically expand the modes of plant intracellular signalling opening possibilities for additional regulations and crosstalks it would also provide a new means of targeted engineering of signalling outputs highly relevant for plant biotechnologyto systematically explore this radical hypothesis i propose to generate optogenetic tools to i monitor and ii specifically manipulate cellular campgmp levels our vrootchip microfluidics setup allows us to iii survey the plant signalling landscape and identify pathways involving campgmp further supported by iv identification of thusfar elusive campcgmp targets as a blueprint for the use of the generated tools and knowledge we plan v to elucidate the role of cgmp in phytohormone jasmonate signalling together these approaches will establish campcgmp as bona fide second messengers in plants we provide a rich resource to investigate their involvement in any chosen signalling mechanism or cellular response while offering tools to manipulate their signalling output for both fundamental discoveries and targeted applicationsthis strategy poses considerable intellectual and methodological challenges but our robust initial results including functionality of campcgmp sensors show a conceptual breakthrough is feasible dramatically expanding our current view on plant signalling and beyond
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reusing effluents from agriculture to unlock the potential of microalgae
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realm will transform nutrientrich drain waters from soilless farms into value by producing microalgae at reduced costs while treating water and capturing co2 from the air this concept will increase the circularity and profitability of microalgal production and soilless farming the nordaqua and algacycle projects nordforsk and eea respectively have shown the feasibility of this concept in finland and portugal and now realm aims to demonstrate it at an industrial scale accordingly two validation facilities will be installed in the netherlands and finland and two demonstration facilities will be deployed in portugal and spain near soilless greenhouses with knowhow from the sabana project h2020 these facilities will operate photobioreactors under a turbidostatic regime continuous harvest for maximum productivity using nutrientrich wastewaters from the greenhouses growth and harvesting units will be powered by photovoltaic energy and automatically managed by novel sensors while aibased predictive models and a cloudbased monitoring system will assist production microalgal biomass will be processed by local downstream processing units using dairy industry supply chain as a working model this concept will offer sustainable wastewater treatment technology to farmers by closing the nutrient loop and is expected to reduce microalgae production costs by 50 whose savings will be used to increase the competitiveness of the proposed microalgaebased products namely agrochemicals and aquafeed a business model will be developed to propose the installation of multiple microalgae production facilities next to soilless greenhouses and connected to a centralised processing facility the results generated by realm will be disseminated so the demonstrated concept can be replicated by relevant stakeholders in all eu while targeting several objectives established by the european green deal such as working with nature to improve human health by promoting a greener industry
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the environmental exposome and health
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envesome aims to elucidate mechanistically the role of air noise light and hazardous waste pollution in noncommunicable disease development the project addresses the need to strengthen the knowledge available to policymakers regarding pollutiondisease associations and causal mechanisms at different phases throughout the human lifecycle envesome proposes to develop an exposome and citizensciencebased framework for assessing the risks of emerging environmental health stressors this will be achieved by fusing environmental monitoring and personal exposure data and models through ai tools human and cell biology knowledge human biomonitoring and in vitro data will be used to determine adverse outcome pathways and networks associated with environmental stressors particular focus will be paid to intersecting pathways relevant to cardiorespiratory disease metabolic syndrome neurotoxicity immunotoxicity sleep and mental health disorders we aim to elucidate the main sources of environmental exposure and drivers of the adverse outcomes above this will allow for the articulation of costeffective mitigation strategies that will be applied in select case studies their efficacy will be evaluated using environmental and exposure indicators together with early effect biomarkers eeb methodological and technical innovations and the respective scientific evidence regarding the causal links between emerging environmental stressors and human health will be translated into policy proposals supporting the articulation of strategies for country or cityspecific targeted and costeffective interventions thus promoting effective public health protection as well as guidelines and updated limit values as needed environmental management for public health protection will be supported by a decision support system for policy makers a chatbot for health practitioners and a mobile app for citizens training on novel tools will be given to all relevant actors
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