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explainable safe contactaware planning and control for heavy machinery manipulation and navigation
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earthmoving forestry and urban logistics are sectors where increased autonomy can spur drastic economic growth along with addressing some core societal eg address labor shortage and environmental problems eg minimize soil damage fuel consumption yet there are persisting challenges related to variations of tasksenvironments that are intricately linked to the terrainmachine contact encountered during navigation and manipulation for example an excavator machine used in earthmoving needs to adapt to different types of terrain ground underneath loose soil rocks of different shapes and sizes for scooping such task and environment adaptation require machines to modify their perceptiontoaction mapping based on online observations from different sensing modalities xscave will leverage the exceptional representation and approximation capabilities of deep neural networks to automatically learn the terrainspecific adaptation of excavation forwarding and navigation strategies from data the overall objective of xscave is i to develop capabilities for learning performant highspeed safe stable contactaware and explainable perceptiontoaction models for terrain adaptive excavation and navigation strategies and ii demonstrate stepchange in autonomy for excavation forwarding and navigation tasks prevalent in earthmoving forestry and logistics industries to this end xscave aims to reimagine deeplearned models as neural networks augmented with parameterized structured priors derived from physics optimization and classical search to bring domain knowledge into the learning pipeline the fundamental innovations at the algorithmic level will translate to unprecedented ability for the machines to plan control and adapt their actions depending on the task and terrain contact conditions the endresults will be demonstrated in partnership with novatron earthmoving komatsu forestry and clevon outdoor logistic vehicles
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asyno2 providing unprecedented concepts for the access of enantiopure nitrogencontaining molecules
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organic synthesis the culminating point of many areas is greatly beneficial to european development of emerging technologies and asymmetric catalysis is amongst the most challenging but very powerful method to access enantiopure molecules provide new methods to access enantiopure compounds is of high interest when it comes for instance to drug delivery more than 40 of the new drugs approved by the fda in 2015 bear chiral amine 20 in 2005 this increasing need to access chiral amines and its precursors resonates as a call to chemists to pave new routes for the elaboration of these derivatives despite the versatile nature of the nitro group readily converted into amines or many other pharmaceutically relevant functionalities no direct asymmetric nitrative process has been reported to date herein asyno2 aims to merge photoredox or electrochemical with asymmetric organo or acidcatalysis for the development of the first asymmetric nitration reactions despite this synthetic challenge novel and very promising routes along with the support of computational studies are considered and discussed in details in this research plan preliminary results provided proof of concept at the synopsis of this collaborative work between the laboratory of catalysis and organic synthesis of the university of fribourg unifr photo and electrochemistry asymmetric synthesis expertise outgoing phase and the institute of chemistry of poitiers ic2mp umr cnrs 7285 france superacid and nmr expertise return phase superacid chemistry is only mastered by very few research groups in the world and is a european specificity of the group at poitiers and will be applied for the first time to asymmetric catalysis furthermore this program will provide a prolific fellow with an internationally competitive training with the aim of advancing the career of an autonomous scientist in the eu and the next generation of multidisciplinary researchers in pharmaceutical sciences
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illuminating charge transport in feldspar to measure rates of earth surface processes
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lumin will enable unprecedented quantitative measurements of rates of earth surface processes through a new understanding of the charge transfer that records these rates in natural minerals earth surface processes sculpt landscapes disperse nutrients and affect climates and ecosystems knowledge of the rates of these processes is fundamental to understanding and predicting landscape evolution quantifying such rates has proven very challenging over 00001100 m spatial and 10100000 year temporal scales recently luminescence dating techniques based on feldspar the most dominant mineral in earths crust have shown a unique potential to quantify rates over such scales these techniques rely on mathematical models of charge transport in feldspar when exposed to ionising radiation heat and light in earth surface environments however despite extensive efforts our models yield inconsistent results and remain controversial because of our inability to observe these charge transfer processes the prime objective of lumin is to close this acute knowledge gap by applying novel innovations in luminescence physics using our recent breakthrough discovery which enables imaging of trapped electrons lumin will for the first time a observe the spatial and temporal evolution of atomic states participating in luminescence b develop a unified mathematical model of charge transport in feldspar from first principles and c validate this model for measuring rates of earth surface processes lumin will provide a paradigm shift in our knowledge of charge transport processes in feldspar and thus enable quantification of mass removal and transport on unprecedented spatial and temporal scales such data are essential for i resolving the roles of climate tectonics and anthropogenic forcing in shaping our landscapes and ii further developing and fieldtesting landscape evolution models for assessing and addressing the challenge of global warming
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network inpainting via optimal transport
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the precise digital reconstruction of natural networks such as blood vessels or plant roots is crucial to ensure the quality ofsimulationdriven predictions however these structures can often be accessed only via noninvasive techniques leading to artifactsthat compromise the reliability of the data and the derived simulations no technological solution is currently able to recover digitalreconstructions of real networks from corrupted imagesthe niot network inpainting via optimal transport project aims to fill this technological gap by defining for the first time a robustmathematical formulation of the image network reconstruction problem thanks to the most recent advances of the optimaltransport theory we will finally encode into equations the wellknown fact that several natural networks are designed to transportresources with the least effort possible we will adopt a variational image processing method where the reconstructed network isobtained as the density minimizing the sum of the discrepancy with the observed data and a branch inducing functional as such ourproposed methodology builds a bridge between the image regularization and optimal transport communitiesa major ambition of the project is to pair the theoretical analysis with robust simulation tools that are capable of handling real dataarising from mri acquisition techniques this will require exploitation and development of dedicated components to handle largedatasets both from a data handling and a multiscale simulation perspective our algorithm will be tested on a sequence ofincreasingly channeling problems we will start from simple synthetic networks then we will use an highquality map of the bloodvessel network of a mouse brain the final benchmark will be to reconstruct of corrupted vascular networks in mri scans of humanpatients
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the subsequent lives of arab revolutionaries
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what are the biographical consequences and the social outcomes of revolutionary activism when the revolutionary moment turns into a civil war an authoritarian restoration a fragile democratic transition or a return to the former years of lead livear will develop a novel and ambitious analytical approach that will focus on the subsequent lives of ordinary revolutionaries in four contrasted casestudies morocco tunisia egypt and syria by articulating the micro and meso levels it will propose a groundbreaking threefold shift from the usual viewpoint a from the revolutionary moment to the subsequent lives of the women and men who participated in these events and a longitudinal analysis b from political and state institutions and macropolitical transformations to the ordinary activists and the individual level and c from national studies to crossnational comparisons in order to comprehend patterns and variations depending on the political context this analytical framework will unfold along four intertwined lines of research 1 activist careers and biographical consequences 2 emotional legacies 3 revolutionary interpersonal networks 4 revolutionary organizations in so doing it will not only contribute to the literature on social movements activism and contentious politics by providing if not a collective biography at least a detailed mosaic of lifestories of activists from the global south but also to the field of comparative politics to which it will offer original and empiricallygrounded data to document the multiple possible social outcomes of revolutionary processes as they unfold in nondemocratic contexts the project will rely on a multidisciplinary skilled team and devise a diversified qualitative methodological toolkit combining life story interviews with life calendars an analysis of digital social networks and internet archives ethnographic observations of daily life practices and encounters and secondary sources
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strongly polarized carbon taming fundamental intermediates and their applications
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in cccharged i propose a new concept to induce cc bond polarization as well as predict fundamentally new stable carbonbased compound classes the manipulation of functional groups builds the basis for the rational design of complex molecules in organic synthesis while most compound classes have been studied for decades few remain virtually unexplored only suggested as reactive intermediates i propose to tame these elusive intermediates into hitherto unknown roomtemperature stable compound classes central motif to gain stability relies in the polarization of the cc bond which can either result in zwitterions charged or diradicals the dichotomic behavior will be analyzed and a general approach to cc bond polarization will be developed based on a new concept of mesoionic frustration such mesoions are predicted to be exceptionally strong polarized carbon compounds exceeding the polarization of traditional ylides triggering applications from transition metal main group chemistry to organic synthesis the reactivity of such strong carbon donors will be analyzed correlated and a scale generated applications of cc bond polarization in the stabilization of unsaturated diazo and monosubstituted carbon compounds are presented their synthesis electronic structure and reactivity will be evaluated and applications such as catom transfer reagents for molecular editing studied while singlet vinylidenes are central intermediates in organic reactions the generation and reactivity of triplet vinylidenes is virtually unknown i propose them as new compounds in organic chemistry as metalvinylidene precursors and as new platforms for magnetic applications recent highimpact publications by the group build the basis for this project that goes far beyond the stateoftheart considering that carbon is the pivotal element of life and the central element of organic chemistry cccharged is a fundamental groundbreaking contribution to organic chemistry
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supervised morphogenesis in gastruloids
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the lack of realistic in vitro organ models that can faithfully represent in vivo physiological processes is a major obstacle affecting the biological and medical sciences the current gold standard is animal experiments but it is increasingly clear that these models mostly fail to recapitulate the human physiology moreover animal experiments are controversial and it is a common goal in the scientific community to minimize the use of animals to a strictly necessary minimum the emergence of stem cell engineered organ models called organoids represents the only viable alternative to animal research however current organoid technology is yet to produce the larger physiologically relevant organmodels that the medical sciences really need specifically current organoids are too small not vascularized and lack the 3dimensional organization found in vivo in this interdisciplinary project we aim to challenge all these limitations by using the recently developed gastruloid technology guided by cutting edge bioengineering and artificial intelligence gastruloids are formed by initiating the very early developmental processes and develops along a highly coordinated three axial process that closely resembles mammalian embryogenesis moreover gastruloids can develop several organ precursors simultaneously and thus constitutes important improvements over conventional singletissue organoids to harvest the potential of gastruloid technology we will first implement large sequencing and imaging experiments to optimize the developmental trajectory of gastruloids for organ inductions we will then build these datasets into a multimodal data matrix to identify gastruloid candidates for cardiovascular and foregut development specifically we will identify candidates that show strong vasculogenesis as candidates for later vascularisation by anastomose with endothelial cells
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improve offshore infrastructure resilience against geohazards towards a changing climate
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poseidon brings together an interdisciplinary and intersectoral team to deliver a professionally trained nextgeneration network of doctoral candidates to develop a step change in our capacity to identify map assess and predict offshore geohazards and in turn produce groundbreaking methods to prevent mitigate and boost the resilience of current offshore infrastructure under a changing climate the consortium is formed by experts across eu countries with universities research institutions industry partners and a government body to cover a full training programme on scientific and transferable skills the programme will undertake critical research across scales from micro to macro for seeking the inner links and differences with an eventual aim to ascertain the pathways and grow our capacity for the enhancement of the existing and the robust development of new offshore infrastructure in the frame of safety and resiliency in addition to the informed design and implementation of the novel physicalnumerical modelling and lab studies our approach is unique in the solid integration and utilisation of stateoftheart data science technologies eg data mining machine learning etc to their full potential only through this systematic approach we can achieve the objectives of understanding the impact of offshore geohazards on our offshore critical infrastructures ocis and developing novel models tools and designs for future ocis such as wind turbines pipelines and cables the doctoral candidates will enjoy a highly integrated interdisciplinary and intersector training environment enriched through secondments with the network of nonacademics poseidon enables critical learning across all training aspects to ensure that comprehensive robust and implementable solutions are obtained and validated to face the ocis climateresilient building
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the plant water pump
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with global warming climate zones are projected to shift poleward and the frequency and intensity of droughts to increase driving threats to crop production and ecosystems plant hydraulic traits play major roles in coping with such droughts and processbased plant hydraulics water flowing along decreasing pressure or total water potential gradients has newly been implemented in land surface modelsan enigma reported for the past 35 years is the observation of water flowing along increasing water potential gradients across roots by combining the most advanced modelling tool from the emerging field of plant microhydrology with pioneering cell solute mapping data i found that the current paradigm of water flow across roots of all vascular plants is incomplete it lacks the impact of solute concentration and thus negative osmotic potential gradients across living cells this gradient acts as a water pump as it reduces water tension without loading solutes in plant vasculature xylem importantly water tension adjustments in roots may have large impacts in leaves due to the tensioncavitation feedback along stemswith the plant water pump i will combine for the first time cuttingedge osmotic mapping and microhydrological modelling approaches to 1 characterize water status and osmotic responses to water deficit in diverse crop and tree species 2 revolutionize the current paradigm of plant water uptake and 3 increase the accuracy of plant water status functions for land surface models by creating a continuum between key cellscale variables and plantscale water fluxes this project lays the foundations for future multidisciplinary research encompassing plant physiology and ecohydrology besides its groundbreaking contribution to the fundamental understanding of plant water relations this effort embodies a muchneeded step toward the accurate forecasting of land water fluxes and decision support under future climates
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human antibodyenabled cardiovascular personalized theranosis
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abcardionostics envisions an innovative multimarkerbased positron emission tomography pet magnetic resonance imaging mri system for efficient staging and personalized treatment of vulnerable patients with atherosclerosis to provide a snapshot of plaque composition along the arterial tree of atrisk patients human antibodies huabs targeting different affected arterial sites will be developed importantly huabs targeting culprit and protective monocytemacrophage momp populations that are instrumental in plaque progression will be crucial to assess disease status and reprogramme an unbalanced functional state toward atheroprotection to translate this concept into clinical practice the abcardionostics consortium will combine cuttingedge biotechnologies and in silico and computing analyses to close the knowledge gaps on plaque momp spatiotemporal dynamics and the lack of imaging approaches for multimarker detection pioneering in vivo and in vitro phage display approaches to identify relevant huabs ubx multispectral mapping and macroscreen to unravel the functionomics of momp subsets in atherosclerosis munc unvisited in silico and biochip development to identify huab targets mabs cnrstbi innovative huab bioengineering techniques cnrsbacfly and ubxinp btm derivatization and labelling to develop pet tracers to finally explore the feasibility of a translational noninvasive multimarker petmri system for diagnosis and monitoring cnic and an adapted immunotherapy strategy targeted to the appropriate plaque by designing bispecific antibodies cnrsbacfly data processing will integrate multimodal images to obtain insight into plaque morphology and composition pmi abcardionostics successful completion will bring huab leads for atherosclerosis theranosis and novel tools for huab identification and design easily transposable to other diseases revolutionizing the current imaging and therapeutic approaches
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production of superior meat analogues by bridging the benefits of plant proteins and mycelium protein biomass produced from circular substrates
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plantomyc is a transformative initiative aiming to reshape the landscape of the alternative protein sector it aims to bridge the versatile benefits of plantbased proteins with the functional and organoleptic taste aroma texture advantages of mycelial protein biomass mpb and develop innovative minimally processed hybrid meat analogues that are both healthy and tasty the project promotes sustainability by upcycling underutilized circular substrates such as starch rich pea protein byproduct and brewers spent grains to produce mpb by submerged fermentation smf and solidstate fermentation ssf respectively envisioning a nearzero waste process design plantomyc proposes converting the broth from smf into a gammaaminobutyric acid gaba enriched beverage and or a flavorful bouillon adopting a multiactor approach the project addresses challenges related to consumer preferences technological scaling and regulatory requirements notably the impact of plantomycs product prototypes on nutritional functional gut health metabolic syndrome technofunctional and sensory properties will be assessed thoroughly moreover to advance plantomycs trl we perform a comprehensive impact assessment for the adoption of these products utilizing our consortiums industrial endusers plantomyc will significantly increase the competitiveness of european alternative protein initiatives it will accelerate the sector by offering an openaccess knowledge platform introducing new production concepts for hybrid meat analogues increasing resource independence and efficiency providing new market opportunities for industrial partners like millow brl and lantmnnen increasing the affordability of alternative proteins and reducing the environmental footprint of protein production
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next generation gene writing platform to cure genetic and oncological diseases
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gene therapy offers a promising opportunity for treating the more than 10000 human genetic diseases as well as other disorders such as cancer by editing diseasecausing genetic defects or engineering immune cells to target cancer cells however most genetic disorders remain untreatable as gene therapy still holds an untapped potential due to significant limitations of current editing technologies that are not efficient precise and safe enough and thus present limitations in scope and applicability integra therapeutics a spinoff of the pompeu fabra university upf has developed an advanced genome writing platform that overcomes the limitations of current gene editing technologies our proprietary gene writing technology platform ficat combines the precision of rnaguided nucleases with the effectiveness of programmable transposases to insert large pieces of dna in a safe precise and stable way ficat has the capacity to integrate virtually any gene into the genome with unprecedented efficiency precision and safety ficat has already been validated in several ex vivo and in vivo models with ficat we will unlock the potential of gene writing to cure genetic diseases and bring lifechanging therapies to patients suffering from high unmet need genetic and neoplastic diseases
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mechanism regulation and functions of dna loop extrusion by smc complexes
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life and evolution of organisms relies on the maintenance integration propagation and readout of genetic information this information is stored in chromosomes that have a specific threedimensional structure a condensed yet accessible form of dna that is dynamically folded during the lifespan of cells how dna is folded within chromosomes has however remained a mystery it has been proposed that this is achieved by a process of loop extrusion in which smc structural maintenance of chromosomes complexes that are multisubunit atpases present in all kingdoms of life including condensin and cohesin reel dna into loops thereby organizing genomic dna into higherorder structures recent in vitro singlemolecule studies stimulated by our initial discovery on condensin provided direct evidences that both condensin and cohesin can indeed generate chromatin loops by extrusion however the most fundamental questions relating to this process remain unanswered what is the molecular mechanism of loop extrusion how is this process regulated what are the functional roles of smcmediated loop extrusion beyond condensation to address these questions we will synergistically combine our singlemolecule loop extrusion assay with correlative light and electron tomography and force spectroscopy to reveal both dynamic and structural aspects of loop extrusion and smc proteins specifically we will resolve how smc complexes function as molecular motors how regulatory factors modulate the kinetics of loop extrusion and how loop extrusion impacts cellular functions like chromosome segregation and gene recombination all at the single molecule level in the long term our findings will provide vital insights into the basic packaging structure of the genome which directly governs its biological function
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ecology and biology of hpaiv h5 kappaflu
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the global emergence of highly pathogenic avian influenza hpai viruses and the subsequent adaptation to wild birds has resulted in record mortality of wild birds and poultry and is developing into an enzootic threat for wildlife poultry and human health in europe the ongoing evolution of hpai viruses is expanding their geographical distribution and host range to deal with this global problem kappaflu brings together top experts from europe north america and asia the overall objective of kappaflu is the characterization of key viral hostrelated and environmental factors that determine the maintenance and the longdistance spread of hpai viruses in wild birds with the goal of improving capacities for riskbased surveillance prevention and control of hpai in poultry and wildlife and its potential impact on human health kappaflu will follow three research themes theme a disease ecology provides a deep understanding of the population dynamics of hpai viruses in migratory waterbirds and spillover hosts both resident wildlife and poultry through riskbased surveillance strategies and accounting for the impact of climate change theme b virology studies the evolution of hpai viruses in wild birds and poultry and the resulting increasing risk to humans and other mammals based on the above results theme c agroecosystem risk identifies and models prevention and control strategies including vaccination using machine learning algorithms actors from different sectors of society will through the multiactor panel play key roles in translating results into policy and practice in this way kappaflu will make stepwise advances in knowledge of the population dynamics and evolution of hpai and thus contribute to a sustainable poultry production system and improved public health
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proteomicsbased analysis of rsv nucleic acidprotein interactions
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respiratory syncytial virus rsv is a major cause of severe lower respiratory tract infections and a major cause of mortality in children under 5 years old and the elderly worldwide while rsv impose a huge disease burden on public healthcare system the development of effective vaccines and specific antivirals is impeded by a lack of knowledge of virus multiplications mechanisms virushost interactions or pathogenicity here we propose to comprehensively map rsvhost interactions and characterize the cellular response to infection through an integrated multiomics approach and using experimental systems close to natural infection this project will combine my expertise in rsv biology and the host laboratorys profound experience in systems biology analysis by using stateoftheartof proteomics and transcriptomics we will characterize the rsv rnabound proteome as well as the proteinprotein interactome analyze the proteome of cells expressing the individual viral proteins effectome and assess the influence of rsv infection on cellular mrna expression protein abundance and phosphorylation we will systematically map the identified viralinduced perturbations onto a network of known cellular proteinprotein interactions and signalling pathways this comprehensive network will highlight rsvinduced perturbations and pinpoint rsv host dependencyfactors whose functional importance and therapeutic potential will be assessed by conducting genetic and drugbased loss and gain of function experiments biochemical and structural methods and further analyses of the cellular response in genetically or drugperturbed cells will yield insights into the molecular function of selected proteins the proposed multilevel approach will thus reveal yet unstudied proteins and pathways determining rsv growth pathology or viral host defense mechanisms which will shed light on unresolved questions of rsv biology and reveal hotspots amenable to therapeutic intervention
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environmental research infrastructures delivering an open access hub and nextlevel interdisciplinary research framework providing services for advancing science and society
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envrihub next develops and implements the open access hub to the data and services provision framework of the cluster of environmental research infrastructures envri and connects the environmental research community to the european open science cloud the overarching goal of envrihub next is to consolidate and advance the robust conceptual and technical structure established by the envrihub to empower the envri science cluster to provide interdisciplinary datadriven services these services will support climate change research including the development of mitigation and adaptation measures and strategies and the assessment of the climate change risks through this platform envrihub next will facilitate the integration of the environmental sciences community into eosc guided by the concept of essential climate variables in direct answer to the call topic envrihub next expands the frontiers of multidisciplinary environmental sciences by fostering operational synergies between envri ris and developing and utilising complementarities in their data and services provision the joint forces of envri and einfrastructures allow for the integration of cuttingedge information technology alignment with the eosc architecture and efficient resource allocation for the advancement of a more integrated productive and globally competitive envri science clusterthe envrihub next consortium brings together the key esfri landmarks actris anaee eric epos eric euroargo eric iagos aisbl icos eric lifewatch eric and esfri projects elter participating in envrifair the envri information technology development and support providers from the university of amsterdam seadatanet as the key marine data infrastructure fmi for the close relationship to eosc association and stakeholders and the egi foundation and members of the egi federation to implement the operation of the services and the integration with eosc core
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from niches to norms drivers and diffusion of green social tipping
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how common must a behavior be before a reluctant person decides to conform and can information campaigns and behavioral interventions instigate enough change to transition to a new norm with the least disruption the project addresses these topical questions contributing key insights to the ecological transition the netzero transition poses unprecedented societal challenges that cannot be tackled with technology and markets alone it requires behavioral and social change abandoning entrenched detrimental norms including those that perpetuate the fossilfueled lockin is notoriously difficult preventing change and limiting policy efficacy a nascent literature tackles social tipping interventions sti aiming at costeffective disproportionate change by pushing behaviors past an adoption threshold beyond which further uptake is selfreinforcing intervening on target groups can greatly reduce the societal cost of a policy and thus holds promise for precipitating change yet research in this field is confined to theory or smallscale experiments green tipping aims to provide an innovative and rigorous analysis of the untapped potential of tailored interventions to scale sustainable behavior and trigger systemic shift to this end i plan a fourpronged approach posit test refine validate the team derives predictions on the conditions and timing for abandoning a detrimental social norm we then test the effectiveness of a battery of interventions on representative multicountry samples to quantify the hypothesized effects this allows for refining target specific sti to be tested in controlled group experiments lastly we validate the findings by assessing contagion in the field focusing on renewable energy adoption in targeted samples elsewhere the interdisciplinary approach draws from the natural and social sciences with transformative theoretical experimental and policy advances relevant to environmental and other highstake challenges
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nonhermitian transport in anderson forbidden land
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this proposal is centered around the recently discovered by the pi groundbreaking way of transport in strongly anderson localized nonhermitian media initially anderson localization was studied on electrons but it was later realized that photons provide an alternative cleaner route however one fundamental problem of photonics is that of inherent material losses as the paradigm of paritytime symmetric optics indicates the resolution of this problem is the judicious combination of gain and loss via index engineering such nonhermitian paradigm provides the opportunity to overcome anderson localization after sixty years by proposing a novel way of transport unique in the complex photonic media something that is experimentally impossible in condensed matter physics the key idea is the inclusion of appropriate gainloss index profiles that allow light to cross the forbidden land of anderson via sudden jumps despite the fact that all eigenstates are localized my proposal is focused on four directions that span out of the main theme of sudden jumps the first one is the role of openness in the most general case of uncorrelated disorder a second open question is that of existence of jumps in correlated media that support constantintensity states for both questions the maximization of the effect based on wavefront shaping and index engineering is important a third question is the possibility of topologically protected jumpy transport in disordered topological insulators finally i intend to examine the more difficult and fundamental problem of manybody effects on nonhermitian jumpy transport the underlying mathematical framework is that of nonhermitian random matrix theory and pseudospectrum a widely used method in turbulence studies of fluid mechanics my project is expected to open a new path in both disordered photonics that exploit the unique features of nonhermiticity namely extreme sensitivity exceptional points and novel lasing schemes
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revealing electron phonon coupling from rixs
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the electronphonon interaction is ubiquitous in manyparticle physics and chemistry the strength of the electronphonon coupling epc determines countless physical properties and phenomena notably it gives rise to conventional superconductivity and plays a key role in hightemperature superconductivity the main goal of renoir is to accurately determine the epc strength in materials that are relevant for technological applications providing crucial insights into the behaviour of excitons and phonondriven phenomena resonant inelastic xray scattering rixs spectroscopy holds the promise to access phonon excitations with a remarkable highresolution thanks to the significant technical advancements achieved in recent years providing momentum dependence and bulk sensitivity however the interpretation of measured signatures remains challenging since different excitations are coupled through interactions indeed although rixs is used to measure epc it primarily reveals excitonphonon coupling due to the interaction with a core hole so far theoretical approaches mainly rely on oversimplified models that use adjustable parameters to fit experimental results limiting their applicability renoir aims to convert this challenge into the opportunity to realise the great potential of rixs to determine epc in quantum materials renoir will develop a novel parameterfree methodology to calculate rixs spectra combining accurate and reliable approaches such as the bethesalpeter equation within greens functions theory for excitons and density functional perturbation theory for phonons as a primary application renoir will focus on hightemperature superconducting materials and heterostructures celebrated for their transformative power in electronics and energy applications moreover the resulting software will be made freely available to a very wide community opening the way for understanding and predicting rixs measurements of epc in many other materials
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safe and explainable critical embedded systems based on ai
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deep learning dl techniques are key for most future advanced software functions in critical autonomous aibased systems cais in cars trains and satellites hence those cais industries depend on their ability to design implement qualify and certify dlbased software products under bounded effortcost there is a fundamental gap between functional safety fusa requirements of cais and the nature of dl solutions needed to satisfy those requirements the lack of transparency mainly explainability and traceability and the datadependent and stochastic nature of dl software clash against the need for deterministic verifiable and passfail testbased software solutions for caissafexplain tackles this challenge by providing a novel and flexible approach to allow the certification hence adoption of dlbased solutions in cais by 1 architecting transparent dl solutions that allow explaining why they satisfy fusa requirements with endtoend traceability with specific approaches to explain whether predictions can be trusted and with strategies to reach and prove correct operation in accordance with certification standards safexplain will also 2 devise alternative and increasingly complex fusa design safety patterns for different dl usage levels ie with varying safety requirements that will allow using dl in any cais functionality for varying levels of criticality and fault tolerancesafexplain brings together a highly skilled and complementary consortium to successfully tackle this endeavor including 3 research centers rise ai expertise ikr fusa expertise and bsc platform expertise and 3 cais case studies automotive nav space aiko and railway ikr safexplain dlbased solutions are assessed in an industrial toolset exi finally to prove that transparency levels are fully compliant with fusa solutions are reviewed by internal certification experts exi and external ones subcontracted for an independent assessment
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food and nutrition datadriven innovation respectful of citizens data sovereignty
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the data economy holds great promises for making food systems more sustainable data collected in digital solutions in the food and nutrition domain could be used by food producers distributors retailers to innovate towards more environmentallyfriendly activities however the currently used platforms are closed and do not allow citizens to exercise their rights to personal data sovereignty moreover the closed aspect of these platforms hinders the possibility to use these data for common good even if users gave their consent to share their anonymised personal datait is time for europe to ensure a healthy ecosystem of digital solutions for food and nutrition that respect citizens right to personal data sovereignty foodity will run a 2m pilot development program funding 12 industry and research collaborations to develop pilots demonstrating the potential of datadriven innovations in health and nutrition engaging citizens in their development the pilots will demonstrate the potential of users personal data in health and nutrition solutions to contribute to more just and environmentallyfriendly food systems reaching over 200000 citizens in our communication actionsthe foodity pilot development program we provide its beneficiaries with a set of value adding services including onetoone mentoring training on technical business and legal topics relevant as well as technical support into assets to which beneficiaries can use as building blocks the development of the pilots foodity builds on the protein h2020 project will provide stateoftheart tools and software components as building blocks for the development of personalised nutrition solutions and the poseidon h2020 project provides a deploymentready solution for trustworthy secure largescale data sharing transactions full gdpr compliance and relying on the centralised technologies and digital identity thus guaranteeing the personal data sovereignty of the end users
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tealhelix building resilience through inclusive and personalized food labeling
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the tealhelix advances the stateoftheart by proposing a more precise and targeted approach empowerment through personalization and inclusion using the underlying logic of motivational matching we will develop a number of new labeling approaches and digital social innovations to guide and improve consumer decisionmaking such an approach will also enable us to address resistance to sustainability ideas and tailor our interventions to the heterogeneity in individual needs of vulnerable consumers combining insights from life cycle social and economic environments analysis measurement and consumer behavior theories we will develop a new measure to assess how individual and planetary preferences for various sustainability dimensions can be aligned to reach sustainability goals next we will test a number of means of transmission traditional labeling approaches digital and brickandmortar retail labeling approaches and smart labeling approaches to sustain and scale the change we will develop integrity guidelines and new sustainability information provision standards for the industry we will leverage the interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary competencies of the consortium in marketing consumer behavior psychology environmental information sciences as well as in communication retailing and standardsetting industries the project will generate multiple novel methods to study labeling approaches and original empirical evidence through machine learningbased big data analysis largescale surveys experiencesampling and microlevel experiments finally we will integrate the findings into digital social innovations powered by ai tools to support labeling solutions as a result we will provide a deeper understanding of how various external environments shape attitudes and beliefs towards food sustainability labeling how to motivate consumers to follow sustainable labeling guidelines and how to include the ones who are in greatest need
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artificial intelligence in manufacturing leading to sustainability and industry50
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aims50 a collaborative innovation action aims at strengthening european digital sovereignty in comprehensively sustainable production by adopting extending and implementing aienabled hardware and software components and systems across the whole industrial value chain to further increase the overall efficiencyvulnerability of existing supply chains in crisis shows the need for shorter supply chains and for keeping production in europe ai enabled fabs will be given more output and higher sustainability which makes them more competitive on a global scale new technologies from iot and based on semantic web ontologies ml and ai will help to enable the transformation from industry40 to industry50 to create humancentric workplace conditions and to enable the transformation of european industry to climatefriendly production above all sustainability and resilience will be improvedin essence aims50 will deliver aienabled electronic hardware components systems for sustainable production ai tools methods algorithms for sustainable industrial processes sosbased architectures microservices for aisupported sustainable production semantic modelling data integration for an open access productive sustainability platform acceptance trust ethics for explainable industrial ai leading to humancentered sustainable manufacturing20 use cases in 9 industrial domains resulting in high trls will validate the projects findings in an interdisciplinary manner a professional dissemination communication exploitation and standardisation will ensure the highest impact possiblefor the first time a joint approach for implementing ai and aienabled hardware will be developed that overarches different industrial domains aims50 will result in lower manufacturing costs increased product quality through aienabled innovation decreased timetomarket and increased user acceptance of versatile technology offerings they will foster a sustainable development in an economical ecological and societal sense and act as enablers for the green deal and push the industry towards industry50the innovations will leverage the experience of the 53 partners such as renowned oems tier1 and tier2 suppliers technology and application large enterprises and smes supported by academic research specialists in fields like ai industrial hardware and software decision making and management algorithms specific outcomes of the project are 20 faster time to market participation of disabled people in the factory environment 5 in relation to the total number of employees employed in production ai based mes capability 10 increased user awareness and trust by 10 subsequent reduction of environmental footprint for wafer transport handling and storage 20 50 reduction of time for monitoring industrial equipmentaims50 is a paneuropean initiative to boost industrial competitiveness through interdisciplinary innovations establishing sustainable ecs value chains and therefore contribute to european digital sovereignty addressing urgent issues like security of supply monitoring and crisis response and chip shortage
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adaptation solutions to reduce climate change impact on health in the mountain area
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in the face of climate change events like covid19 crisis with high impact in specific sectors demonstrated the importance of resilient societies as such it is vital to act with a level of urgency for climate change related impacts to health sector that are proportionate to the scale of the threat be prepared and informed on the basis of the bestavailable science and practise clear and consistent communications to all those involved therefore in mountadapt various regional and local authorities and community members will take the leadership to codesign codevelop and test eleven state of the art climate adaptation solutions across the mountains biogeographical region in austria slovenia france and romania a diversity of actors of the health system will also collaborate throughout the project to demonstrate the replicability of the solutions in a diversity of settings within the alpine mountains in romania outside europe in the pyrenees in andora and beyond in the continental area in germany mountadapt will develop robust models to better understand the impact of climate change on health pr1 the project will cover the whole chain of response to a climate induced health emergency with monitoring tools pr2 that will be directly linked to short term forecasts to communicate warnings pr3 to the relevant stakeholders an emergency management tool pr4 will finally support health systems to optimally organise staff in crisis time this will be supported by guidance for transforming the health system pr5 and empowered actors with the training courses for healthcare professionals and awareness raising campaigns for citizens pr6 detailed monitoring protocols and impact assessment frameworks pr7 will allow for a continuous evaluation of a range of adaptation solutions during and after the project providing incentive for their implementation finally mountadapt will provide a full guide pr8 for the implementation of its adaptation solutions boosting their replication in new territories and will provide feedback to the health emergency preparedness and response authority
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smartfuse gamechanger to create a new goldstandard for spinal fusion surgery with wirelessly technology
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spinal surgery has a significant failure rate of 18 leading to devastating complications for patients with the knowledge that bone remodels naturally using electric signals we are transferring cutting edge neuromodulation technology into the orthopaedic field we incorporate our proprietary wirelessly powered bioelectrical stimulation system into standard orthopaedic implants our first product smartfuse addresses the issues of nonunion and bone overgrowth in spinal fusion surgery by harnessing the local delivery of electrical stimulation to accelerate bone growth and control the formation of new bone in addition to accelerating and controlling bone growth smartfuse can measure the quantity and quality of new bone enabling realtime feedback on the progress of healing to the physician and other caregivers through eic funding we will complete a clinical pilot trial and prepare a pivotal study demonstrating efficiency and safety to achieve the necessary market approvals
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novel strategies for the assembly of sp3 carbonboron bonds development of multicomponent reactions of boryl radicals using photocatalysis
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boroncontaining small organic molecules are fundamental buildingblocks in synthetic chemistry due to their use in the nobel prizewinning suzuki crosscoupling the invention of novel chemical reactions that form carbonboron bonds in unprecedented ways is of strategic importance to facilitate the discovery evolution and manufacture of molecules that impact our societythe overarching aim of this project is to explore a conceptually novel approach where sp3 carbonboron bonds are assembled through the reactivity of bcentred radicals boryl radicalshere we propose to develop unprecedented multicomponent reactions based on the photocatalytic generation of boryl radicals from homoallylic amineboranes followed by their cyclization and then diversification through a final reaction with a broad range of trapping agents this novel synthetic approach will provide a novel class of borylated building blocks that have not been prepared before and we will study their application in metalcatalysed crosscouplings this methodology will be applied to streamline the preparation of difficulttomake drug analoguesthe proposal capitalizes on recent developments of the host group that pioneered the use of amineboranes in photoredox catalysis for boryl radical generation and utilizationthe development of this innovative project at rwth aachen will create new tools in bioorganic chemistry and facilitate the preparation of highvalue materials its implementation will be facilitated by generating transferring sharing and disseminating knowledge and will enhance my future career following the training plan envisioned
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modelling and simulating huntergatherer seafaring in the americas ecology society and watercraft technology in cold aquatic environments
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one of the major problems archaeologists have yet to address systematically is the development of watercraft and longdistance seafaring which is critical for understanding earlier coastal and insular colonization and the emergence of social complexity among smallscale societies the hugasea project is designed to address the determining factors in organizational and seafaring strategies of aquatic hunterfishergatherers hfg on the northwest coast of north america and the fuegopatagonia coast of south america the project is based in an innovative and interdisciplinary approach integrating archaeology ethnohistory ecology computational modelling and artificial intelligence the project is inherently comparative as the two regions and their respective internal variation offer the opportunity to test past interaction among three variables watercraft technology environment and social organization mobility gender status cultural diversity ecological archaeological and ethnohistorical data will be collected and modelled with gisbased methods then agentbased models abm will be created validated by sensitivity analysis and machine learning bayesian belief networks against empirical data and finally used to geosimulate seafaring hfg in aquatic environments test hypothesis and predict spatial patterns the project will reach expert and nonexpert audiences including indigenous peoples and young audiences through a range of dissemination communication and outreach activities the researcher will develop the project on the us northwest coast where he will expand his experience research competencies and international networks all the new knowledge and skills will be transferred back to the european host during the incoming phase thus the project will be very productive for both the researcher and the hosts enhancing the development of his career as an independent researcher
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leveraging the zombiemaking strategies of ophiocordyceps fungi to understand animal behaviour
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reminiscent of zombies in pop culture some parasites hijack host behaviours our understanding of this parasite strategy to improve transmission is minimal despite its convergent evolution across major taxa functional genetics studies would advance our knowledge of the molecular underpinnings of zombie behaviour additionally learning how behaviour can be altered would elucidate how normal phenotypes are maintained however most zombiemaking parasites and their hosts are not classic model organisms which complicates mechanistic interrogationthe socalled zombie ants can be used to study parasite hijacking of animal behaviour in more detail zombie ants are infected by ophiocordyceps fungi that cause summit disease infected ants ascend vegetation that they bite into as they die to ensure fungal spore dispersal my lab developed fungal culturing techniques infection methods and behavioural assays to detail infectionrelated changes in daily ant foraging communication and locomotion additionally by integrating multiomics tools we identified candidate fungal products and ant host pathways that might underlie the behavioural changes observed however to move from correlation to causation these candidates need to be functionally testedby leveraging my labs pioneering work and my training in molecular microbiology i aim to elucidate the molecular genetics underlying parasite hijacking of host behaviour i propose to 1 adopt molecular genetics tools to characterise fungal products that induce altered host behavioural phenotypes 2 use rnaseq and rnai to investigate the affected ant pathways that give rise to those phenotypes and 3 further establish involvement of these behavioural pathways through integration of the animal model drosophila melanogasterthe proposed work will be transformative in our understanding of parasite manipulation strategies and spark novel research into sustainable pest control strategies and fungusderived drugs
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collaborative radio light detection and ranging
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this proposal aims at developing an advanced detection and ranging sensor system based on a collaborative scheme integrating on the same module both radio and lightbased sensing the module will consist of a silicon photonics solidstate light detection and ranging lidar chip with integrated laser source and driver electronics a cmos radio detection and ranging radar chip connected to a single transmitting tx and receiving rx set of antennas a processing unit pu to actively control the two sensors and process the generated data the lidar and radar chip will be integrated on the same printed circuit board pcb avoiding any use of free space optics the proposed architecture will allow an active cooperation of the two sensors through an advanced algorithm installed on the pu coralidar advanced sensor system will exploit lidars highresolution capabilities and radars strong reliability in adverse weather conditions to deliver an automotive compatible detection and ranging system the use of fully integrated photonics and electronics will reduce packaging size manufacturing cost and ultimately operational power with coralidar we plan to create a lowcost low power and reliable sensor system that can be used as a platform for the automotive market and beyond
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addressing the environmental impacts of food loss and waste prevention and its rebound effects
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if food loss and waste flw were a country it would be the third leading cause of greenhouse gas emissions flw also burdens waste management systems and exacerbates food insecurity contributing significantly to the three global crises of climate change nature and biodiversity loss and pollution and waste precious an transdisciplinary alliance of 20 entities from 11 eu countries believes that reliable data on the environmental impacts of flw is crucial for accelerating eu progress towards climate targets and reducing environmental impacts including biodiversity across the food supply chain the projects collective understanding is that the challenge goes beyond measuring the amount of food saved or co2 emissions when food is wasted valuable and limited resources such as water land use and energy are lost while 89 of the worldwide population is suffering from hunger accordingto fao therefore depleting the planets natural resources it is critical to broaden our understanding of the issue to transform the food system and raise public awareness that motivate change precious aims to contribute to the transformation of food systems by addressing existing data gaps and developing a unified and openly accessible evaluation framework to quantify the economic environmental and social impacts of strategies to reduce flw taking into account potential rebound effectsthe project will engage stakeholders from 2 use cases spain and greece and 3 cocreation and replication nodes poland lithuania hungary to address systemic causes across geographical boundaries the project aims to induce a fundamental change in attitudes and behaviours towards food consumption and disposal through collaborative efforts and innovative methods fostering a more just and sustainable eu food system
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probing the role of mechanosensory pathways in regulating intestinal stem cell activity and gut homeostasis
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in adult organisms gut barrier function is maintained by adapting the proliferation and turnover of resident intestinal stem cells iscs to environmental cues in recent years an immense effort in the field has successfully identified many short and longrange signals involved in iscdriven adaptive growth responses however it is becoming increasingly evident that biomechanical cues such as shear stress compressions swellings and tissuescale tension also play a key role in regulating sc activity in adult tissues hence the adult gut is constantly exposed to mechanical stress and must adapt accordingly to the stretch and strain despite the undisputed impact that mechanical forces have on adult organ physiology very little is known about the molecular signals involved using drosophila as a model we performed a genetic screen for isc niche receptors coupling environmental cues with iscdependent adaptive growth and identified several receptors belonging to mechanotransduction pathways as indispensable for preserving gut barrier function mechanical forces can be either of tissue intrinsic origin such as forces emanating from cell division and cell death or of external origins such as those originating from extracellular matrix remodeling mechanical coupling to neighboring tissues and food and fluid flow recent studies in developing embryos and during tissue morphogenesis show that cells can sense mechanical forces through mechanotransducer proteins and are used as cues to regulate gene expression patterns cell fate specifications cell packing and proliferation an insight into mechanosensation in regulating isc niche homeostasis in mature organs is still lacking and given my scientific background in biophysics and mechanobiology this study aims to understand the role of mechanosensory inputs in maintaining the isc niche using the drosophila adult gut as a model system
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synthesis and properties of fblock organometallics en route to the bond
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if the felements rare earths and actinides have many applications in various fields catalysis materials for optics for magnetism for energy and quantum technologies major fundamental questions yet remain to be discovered the nature of the interactions between the f orbitals which have a low radial extension and their surroundings is still in question indeed if the buriedcharacter of felectrons confers their compounds with some of their properties this particularly harms the description of covalent bonds of symmetry more specifically the interaction of two symmetry metallic orbitals which would lead to the description of bonds is sorely lacking in the landscape of molecular chemistry in order to exacerbate the interactions with f orbitals we propose to use the argument of symmetry locking the f orbitals in an ideal configuration which will make the description of interactions easier to study we propose to use original large aromatic ligands in order to synthesize compounds of high symmetry this approach notably differs from the current one which aims to sterically hinder conventional ligands with large substituents once the symmetry is locked we will vary the electron count and the redox state as well as the ligand field by modulating the 4f or 5fion used including transuranic elements the organometallic synthesis of the these original 4f and 5fcompounds will be followed by experimental electronic density studies as well as adapted spectroscopy which will shed light on the interactions of symmetry unusual radioelements uranium and more classical rare earth metal ions will thus lead to an overall assessment of the necessary requirements to enhance the interactions and move towards molecules containing several fmetal ions and a small intermetallic distance the redox and physical properties of the latter compounds will be engineered with the aim of forming molecules containing metalmetal interactions of symmetry
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supporting uptake integrated pest management and lowrisk pesticide use
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research has shown that welldesigned integrated pest management programmes ipm are a viable solution to reduce the dependency on use of chemical pesticides however the uptake of ipm practices by farmers remains low creating a challenge to support adoption of those techniques this requires thorough understanding of the decisionmaking process of farmers and other involved stakeholders in order to improve strategies and policies that enables and stimulates the application of ipm support responds to this challenge by increasing the capacity to understand the environmental social and economic impacts of existing and future crop protection systems in which ipm is applied by creation of an inventory of ipm tools and techniques and the development an impact monitoring system farmers behave in an economic social and institutional environment support will identify barriers and opportunities in the entire agrifoodchain for the adoption of ipm and analyse qualitatively and quantitatively their role in farmer decisionmaking data will be collected by interviews surveys choice experiments and derived from the fadn the results of this analysis will be used as a basis for the development of strategies and policies enabling and supporting farmers and other stakeholders to apply ipm the develop takes place in a cocreation process with stakeholders therefore a multiactor approach will be the backbone of the research process 26 national crop clusters nccs will be used for data collection in 9 of those nccs community of practices cops will be developed with public and private stakeholders to cocreate strategies and policies the cops will be embedded in a network of practice nop an overarching platform connecting all stakeholders this nop will be used to communicate discuss and disseminate results of support with the entire community of stakeholders in the eu
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an extreme mesh deformation method to follow sharp physical interfaces
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this project will develop an innovative approach xmesh to overcome a major difficulty associated with engineeringanalysis we aim to provide a revolutionary way to track physicalinterfaces in finite element simulations using extreme deformation ofthe meshesunprecedented low computational cost high robustness andaccuracy are expected as the proposed approach is designed to avoidthe pitfalls of the current methods especially for topological changes the key idea of the projecthas emerged in a synergistic brainstorming between jf remaclemeshing methods and n mos computational methods this key ideais to allow elements to deform up to zero measure for example atriangle can deform to an edge or even a point this idea is ratherextreme and totally revisits the interaction between the meshingcommunity and the computational community who for decades havestriven to interact through beautiful meshes six areas in fluid and solid mechanics as well as heattransfer are targeted interfaces will be either i materialie attached to particles of matter the interface between twoimmiscible fluids or the dry interface in a wetting and drying modelii immaterial ie migrating through the material asolidification front contact front yield front in yield stress fluidflow or a crack front successes brought by xmesh are expected in the following engineeringareas safety design and maintenance manufacturing processes coastalengineering energy efficiency ocean modeling to cite a few theproject takes place in a stimulating environment mixing senior staffwith phds and postdocs to produce and disseminate publications withopen source pieces of software it also intends to create a synergy atlarge with the computational communities dealing with interfaces andfronts in all fields of science topology optimizationsuperconductivity tissue growth hydrogel swelling crystal growthferroelectric crystal etc
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high dimensional approximation and discretization
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approximation and discretization are two steps of making high dimensional problems more computationally feasible on the one hand both the approximation of certain functional classes by simpler functions and the discretization of underlying space while preserving certain important properties are classical problems on the other hand new trends and challenges in pure mathematics and applications lead to new approximation and discretization problemsthe main goal of this research is to study certain high dimensional approximation and discretization problems firstly we intend to obtain new innovative results in the problem of integral norms discretization both in the important special case of algebraic polynomials on convex domains and in the general case of any finite dimensional subspace of continuous functions secondly we will study the dependence of the rate of approximation by polynomials on the smoothness properties of functions while this second problem itself is classical our main aim is to study it in new settings finally both described problems will require the study of various properties of multivariate algebraic polynomialsthe stated goals require the development of a new technique involving a combination of classical analytic and new probabilistic approaches in order to develop this new technique the researcher will work under the supervision of sergey tikhonov who is one of the most experienced researchers in the fields of harmonic analysis approximation and discretization while working with the supervisor the researcher will acquire techniques of classical approximation theory then this new obtained techniques will be combined with the researchers own expertise in probabilistic approaches in functional analysisin conclusion this msc fellowship will allow the applicant to obtain new important results in various research areas this will support him as an independent researcher and advance his career opportunities within the eu
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packaging with ai for circular economy strengthening digiminds market position
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packaging is the biggest contributors to the global waste problem because it is not designed for circularity given the changes in the legislations and the increasing customer awareness the packaging industry is under pressure to solve this problem at the design phase of their products one of the main difficulties is to manage the tradeoff of cost performance and sustainability criteria which leads to package performance uncertainties in this context digimind was created with the mission of accelerating the transition to circularity by depackaging waste is one of the biggest contributors to the global waste problem especially plastic packaging accounts for almost half the global plastic waste packaging design is driven mainly by marketing requirements not incorporating any circularity such as recyclability or reusability with nowadays pressure due to limited material resources as well as the need to reduce co2 emissions circularity in packaging design becomes the new key driver for the packaging industry this poses immense challenges to manage the new complexity of the tradeoff of cost performance and sustainability criteria digimind is developing an innovative software solution specifically for the packaging industry to tackle these challenges using digitalization and artificial intelligencepace objective is to strengthen digiminds position to successfully raise funding for the next phase of growth the workplan to achieve this goal is twofold setting up a technical use case with a glass packaging proving digiminds technology on a second material as well as improving our business plan and pitch deck this consolidation of digiminds position in the market will allow me to raise money to lead the company to its next steps in delivering its unique value proposition this will create a strong example of a female cofounded deep tech company successfully build within europe with a strong vision of solving our waste problem using digitalization
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exsoldiers of empire colonial veterancy in the interwar world
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colvet will develop the first comprehensive and comparative account of colonial veterancy in what was the foundational era for modern conceptions of the veteran the interwar period grounded in a collaborative and comparative methodology the project will trace and analyse the contrasts and commonalities in the evolution and reception of veteran policy within across and between the french empire the italian empire the american colonial empire britishruled east africa and britishruled india this innovative research will not only deepen our understanding of veteran history around the world in the period but also help us reimagine the concepts we use to analyse veterans and their stories so they can better capture the diversity of veteran experiencesthe project has four principal aims 1 to trace and compare the history of veteran experiences and policy across colonial contexts and imperial polities 2 to use veteran policy and the responses it elicited to explore the nature of colonial rule across interwar empires3 to expand the imagined geography of veteran history in the period to include colonial veterans 4 to reimagine the conceptual framework of veteran history so it can better incorporate colonial veterans alongside veterans from the rest of the world to achieve these aims the colvet team will explore key questions around the definition and regulation of veterancy the political recognition and mobilisation of veterans and the systems set up to cater for and control veterans across a range colonial territories and imperial polities the project design ensures that the original research this generates will then be put into dialogue with scholarship on and scholars of veterans in other contexts colonial and noncolonial this collaborative and comparative approach will allow the team to coproduce a new analytical framework that will facilitate the writing of a truly global history of the veteran
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panoramic optical manipulation of cardiac electrical dynamics a novel tool to study complex arrhythmias
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cardiovascular diseases are the most common cause of death worldwide and a substantial number of these deaths are caused by cardiac arrhythmias heterogeneities in repolarisation time rt which are caused by prolongation or abbreviation of action potential duration apd in certain areas of the heart can underly arrhythmias inherited disease as well as acquired heart disease such as myocardial infarction can induce rt heterogeneities rth while recent studies shed some light on how rth drive arrhythmias current experimental techniques lack flexibility of affected area size and the conditions facilitating arrhythmias therefore remain elusive recently a novel method to generate rth was described applying lowintensity optical stimulation in murine hearts expressing the lightactivated ion channel channelrhodopsin2 chr2 depolarising resting membrane potential rmp and prolonging apd in a spatially specific manner while this intriguing approach would allow to study the impact of rth on arrhythmogenesis in a highly flexible manner current experimental platforms lack the abilities to perform this assessment therefore we propose to construct a novel panoramic optical platform consisting of 4 cameras and 4 digital projectors to allow for optical stimulation as well as recording across the entire ventricular surface in addition we explore pharmacological approaches to enhance the rt gradient between the optically stimulated and nonstimulated area identifying drugs prolonging apd in an rmpmodulated manner the capability of manipulating rt across the whole heart surface with unprecedented spatiotemporal resolution will be employed to understand the mechanisms underlying arrhythmia induction and rotor maintenance the development of this groundbreaking methodology will provide fundamental insights in cardiac disease boosting new therapeutic strategies and will represent a whole new approach for the investigation of cardiac physiology in general
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uncertainty quantification and modelling bias inhibition by means of an agnostic synergistic exploitation of multifidelity data
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the unbiased project aims at developing an innovative scientific modelling paradigm capable of mitigating potential cognitive biases affecting the modelling process in engineering applications nowadays modelling is mostly a subjective process strongly driven by the prejudice of the modeller and anchored to the knowledge of welldetermined preset physics in practical applications this often results into models affected by epistemic uncertainty datadriven techniques open the path for the construction of computerized models that are able to learn the physics underlying a complex system from the available data alone requiring little if not at all subjectivity interestingly these tools are generally used to obtain mere predictions and no credit is usually given to the possibility of translating the learned patterns and relations into interpretable theories and hypotheses i propose to assess the physics learned by datadriven algorithms in terms of compliance with fundamental principles eg laws of thermodynamics and to test them against a priori subjective hypotheses this will expose differences between the actual experiment and the modellers understanding of it this allows for inverting the rationale underlying the classical modelling process from a theorytodata deductive assessment to a datatotheory inductive inference the ultimate goal is to advance the stateoftheart by crafting a twoway modelling framework combining the hypothesesdriven and the datadriven approaches to mitigate the consequences of biased modelling choices and improve the knowledge about complex physical systems the proposed paradigm is not to be intended as a substitution of the classical scientific modelling method but rather as an extension of it the project is conceived with aerospace applications in mind but the proposed methodology is straightforwardly applicable to the modelling of any physical problem of interest for the academy or the industry
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neuromodulatory control of brain network dynamics
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spontaneous brain activity the most expensive metabolic process of the human brain is highly dynamic and continually evolves over timescales of seconds human neuroimaging has made it possible to map dynamic patterns of spontaneous network activity with increasing precision however our understanding of the origin function and organization of this phenomenon remains alarmingly limited this project aims to elucidate the physiological mechanisms and operational principles that govern spontaneous network dynamics termed here brain network dynamics bnd to achieve these goals i will establish an integrated research platform that combines advanced manipulations and recordings of bnd in the awake mouse brain to comprehensively probe the mechanisms that operate bnd i will carry out two complementary sets of causal manipulations that are conceptualized as exogenous or endogenous neuromodulation depending on whether they encompass synthetic optogenetically generated aim 1 or intrinsic neurotransmitter related aim 2 modulatory mechanisms respectively using this approach i will a uncover the rhythms that causally sustain bnd and establish how bnd causally responds to and can be controlled by mechanisticallyprecise exogenous neuromodulation
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endoplasmic reticulum remodelling via erphagy pathways
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the endoplasmic reticulum er is the most extensive endomembrane system of the cell that undergoes continuous remodelling and adaptation to fulfil required functions in synthesis and transport of cellular components a major driver of er remodelling is erphagy a selective autophagy pathway that targets excess or damaged portions of er for degradation by linking the er membrane to the autophagic machinery erphagy receptors play central roles in this process however beyond the identities of erphage receptors we have little understanding of the mechanisms underlying erphagy and the dynamics of er remodelling this proposal aims to decipher the mechanisms by which erphagy receptors especially those containing reticulonhomology domains rhd drive the dynamic process of er remodelling in a celltype specific fashion we will determine how erphagy is regulated by sitespecific receptor ubiquitination and by the formation of erphagy receptor clusters particularly how ubiquitination regulates cluster size dynamics localization identity and composition we will combine structural computational and functional approaches to determine at the highest possible resolution how ubiquitination and clustering of erphagy receptors controls the multistep process of erphagy and membrane remodelling we aim for a comprehensive understanding of the distinct mechanisms involved in er remodelling in different cell types and in response to various stress conditions this mechanistic knowledge is essential to explain how changes in erphagy and er remodelling impact on the pathophysiology of human diseases from bacterial infections to neurological disorders these novel and groundbreaking discoveries will elucidate an erphagy receptor code controlling er remodelling in health and disease moreover erremodel will provide a conceptual framework for future studies into the dynamic regulation of other cellular organelles via ubiquitindriven selective autophagy
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gray array for neutron induced inelastic crosssection measurements
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neutron inelastic scattering measurements can be employed for the advancement of both fundamental research and applications they are essential for the development of new generation nuclear energy systems in particular for n xn and n ng reactions which are important as they modify the neutron spectrum and population and produce radioactive species in addition to nuclear technology applications neutron inelastic scattering measurements can also advance fundamental research providing information on nuclear reaction mechanisms since they are based on a nonselective method for studying nuclear excited statessuch reactions can be studied through highresolution gammaspectroscopy as a function of the incoming neutron energy employing high purity germanium hpge detectors the ntof facility hosted at cern offers a very suitable beam line for such measurements offering a high instantaneous neutron flux in the neutron energy range of interest of 100 kev up to 100 mev and an excellent neutron energy resolution due to a short driver beam width and a flight path of more than 180 metres the ntof collaboration developed a prototype hpge detector suited for this application and has performed test and proofofprinciple measurements already the present project aims at developing a complete understanding of the existing detector and developing an optimised array of hpge detectors for this application based on several potential physics cases such a setup will offer the opportunity for neutron inelastic measurements at ntof and has the potential to provide high precision data for the nuclear community furthermore such an array can also be employed in neutron capture crosssection measurements as well as prompt fission gamma ray spectroscopy
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forging the blades of the future with composite materials with circular safe and sustainable design
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bladescirc will be one of the pioneering projects of exploring biobased approaches to improve the sustainability of the wind energy sector to this end the project will research on biobased materials to develop new composite these new composites will combine high strength biobased carbon fibres and biobased structural resins with a dynamic performance the dynamic performance provided to the structural resins at molecular and supramolecular level will be the bases to design and develop a set of technologies for improving the lifetime efficient decommissioning and increase the circularity of the offshore and onshore wind energy systems i coatings with selfhealing and ompniphobic properties for lifetime spanning ii debondable adhesives formulation for enhanced recycling and maintenance and iii green solvents and evolved enzymes for chemical and enzymatic degradation processes to recover highquality fibres the proposed innovations are grounded on the results of previous or ongoing projects ecoxy bizente vibes libre or biouptake that have shown the high potential of the biobased solutions which in addition to the modelling testing validation and multicriteria assessment stages will ensure that the new composite will have a competitive performance compared to the existing and commercial solutionsbladescirc will collaborate with the etip wind to engage stakeholders and promote collaborations and disseminate the results in the most relevant scientific forums
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germanium quantum processors more robust available
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quantum computers promise to enable a computing power far beyond the capabilities of modernday classical and super computers and are expected to revolutionise research in among others chemistry medicine and materials research however a quantum computer capable of solving useful problems will require millions of highquality quantum bits qubits working together currently there are several qubit hardware platforms that are being studied and commercialised this commercialisation mainly focuses on superconducting transmon qubits photonic qubits and qubits made with trapped ions although these platforms enabled the first breakthroughs in quantum computing research and are developing steadily the large size of the qubit systems may hamper their scaling towards the millions of qubits required for useful quantum computations groove will overcome the scaling problem that most quantum bit platforms will face by focusing on the semiconductor germanium platform germanium qubits stand out due to a small footprint welldefined longlived qubit states and compatibility with semiconductor manufacturing this is highly promising for scalability we will develop highyield robust qubits and scale up to 16 qubits which we will make available in the cloud in parallel we will write a business plan and prepare the launch of a startup company already during the grant period given the strong commercial potential of this technology our project will greatly contribute to the eu ambition of being in the forefront of the second quantum revolution by enabling a revolutionary technology fulfilling current and future market needs
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nextgeneration engineering of gasfermenting cell factories through largescale systemslevel maps
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gas fermentation provides a unique opportunity for the circular bioeconomy by enabling carbon recycling from gaseous waste feedstocks into valueadded bioproducts using microbes acetogens are ideal biocatalysts for gas fermentation as they use gas co andor co2h2 as their sole carbon and energy source evidenced by the commercialisation of the waste gastoethanol conversion process despite recent efforts our understanding of genotypephenotype relationships in acetogens is still minimal this however is required for rational metabolic engineering and expanding the product spectrum of acetogens to unlock their full potential genesys aims to engineer superior gasfermenting cell factories through revolutionising systemslevel understanding of acetogens and pioneering a new workflow for making largescale arrayed crisprengineered microbial strain libraries first essential genes for autotrophy of the model acetogen clostridium autoethanogenum will be determined using a genomewide crispri screen we then create 750 singlegene knockdown strains of essential genes transcription factors and proteome dark matter using a novel pooledtoarrayed workflow combining synthetic biology automation and dna sequencing next we will generate systemslevel phenotype maps for up to 750 strains through highthroughput gas fermentation and omics analyses big data will be translated into a systemslevel acetogen knowledgebaseabasethrough integrated bioinformatics and machine learning metabolic modelling and data engineering finally we apply abase to engineer acetogen cell factories from the unexplored territories of essential genes transcription factors and proteome dark matter for improving production of ethanol and acetone this project will create superior gasfermenting cell factories advance fundamental understanding of acetogen metabolism and pioneer a new workflow for creating largescale arrayed engineered microbial strain libraries
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protection from viruses with epidemic and pandemic disease outbreak potential through development and clinical testing of a novel capsid virus like particle cvlp vaccine
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the enormous health and economic impacts of epidemics and pandemics has become one of the defining public policy and health issues in europe and throughout the world a new urgency is required to understand rapidly respond to and vaccinate against viruses with epidemic and pandemic potential the major challenge for the modern vaccines is the induction of longterm protective immunity as clearly demonstrated by fast waning of protection for current covid19 vaccines vicidisease is an ambitious project which combines existing cuttingedge expertise in a tried and tested consortium with new advances in this critical field the consortiums main objective is to develop a vaccine candidate portfolio and perform a clinical proofofconcept study to enable stocks of vaccine candidates ready for further development phase 23 in case of pandemic outbreaks the primary candidate will be nipah virus niv a highmortality viral disease with no vaccines or treatments our vaccine is based on niv g protein displayed on capsid virus like particle cvlp enabled by adapting template processes from our recent covid19 vaccine currently in phase 3 and expected to provide bestinclass longevity as shown for covid19the vicidisease consortiums objective is to develop and perform a clinical proofofconcept study for a highly effective 90 protectionlongterm protective 2 yearsniv virus cvlp vaccineby adapting template processes established for our covid19 vaccine currently in phase 3within 48 months in a phase 12a clinical study to help protect medical workers and the public from future niv and hendra virus outbreaksand establish a pipeline of novel filovirus vaccines through preclinical proofofconcept studieswe address the call topic by improving pandemic preparedness and response through development of a niv vaccine to ph12 and two filovirus vaccines to preclinical proofofconcept
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proteinregulated artificial cell populations and tissues
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artificial cells are soft matter micronsized compartments that display features which are normally associated with living cells only these include aspects such as metabolism growth and communication artificial cell research is motivated by the fact that the creation of synthetic compartments with lifelike features leads to a better understanding of the complexity of living cells and to the ability to design systems with interactive behavior research has until now been mostly focused on the development of individual artificial cells however in biology living cells dont act fully independently their behavior is much affected by the proximity of other cells cells therefore display interdependence for both single cell populations of bacteria and for more strongly integrated multicellular systems such as tissues with proartis i aim to explore a new direction in artificial cell research by creating artificial cell populations with interdependent and autonomous function to achieve this goal i will optimally benefit from our recently developed artificial cell platform that allows the dynamic uptake and release of proteins this is a powerful method for the exchange of active components that can be employed in process regulation this investigation is of great interest as it allows me to take the functional integration of different artificial cells to an advanced level from a fundamental point of view this will shed more light on how natural multicellular processes are governed it furthermore provides exciting opportunities to develop concepts that can be translated to a next generation of dynamic soft matter systems i furthermore aim to functionally integrate artificial and living cells this ambitious objective addresses an underexplored area in synthetic biology with much potential in biomedicine if the challenging task of integration succeeds i have developed a technology that directs and modulates biological processes with unprecedented precision
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multimaterial design using 3d printing
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additive manufacturing am has the economic potential to complement conventional manufacturing processes especially in the production of complex multimaterial mm components to exploit the full benefits of optimized lightweight structures it is usually required to use multimaterials with different physical properties still multimaterial combinations from conventional processes are not transferable to am due to residual stresses cracks or thermal expansion rates of the different materials furthermore geometric shape and position tolerances as well as recycling strategies for powder waste postprocessed waste and the component itself are not yet defined based on the 3d printing processes pbflb and ded this project aims at the concurrent engineering of designing processable multimaterial optimized alloys development of design concepts for multimaterial structures with specific simulations for load cases and topology optimizations and an extensive process adaption alloy and process development will be aided by advanced integrated computational material engineering approaches that combine thermodynamics microstructure and process simulations through machineactive learning resulting in shorter material development cycles for bulk and powder materials recycling of multimaterial components via innovative concepts will promote the sustainability of multimaterial additive manufacturing this adaption will lead to increased process reliability and speed enabling the dissemination of mm manufacturing in am for the entire industrythe consortium brings a wide range of international expertise to the table from materials research and digitization to the manufacture of multimaterial components it consists of startups research institutions and market leaders in additive manufacturing industrial endusers cover automotive aerospace and aeronautic applications with specific use cases
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create mature and grow internet commons
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we propose the logical next step to fulfill the ngi vision of reimagining and reengineering the internet our overarching goal is to contribute to a future technology stack that reinstates humanist values we believe this to be vital for a healthy democracy a level playing field for businesses technological sovereignty and crossborder collaborationthe fund will have have a major beneficial impact on society and economy we improve security and robustness of the overall technology supply chain build human and institutional capacity in an inclusive way make the transition to a greener tech stack increases european competitiveness and strategic autonomy and reestablish a prominent role for the commons in standards development through our efforts we structure and grow the commons at global scale together with likeminded actors and support more proactive policy makingwe attract select and support the right people to work on strategic projects and through that build up and maintain a coherent portfolio aligned with the overall intervention logic of ngi we continue to operate the agile effective and lowthreshold funding mechanism of ngi0 the past 5 years this has shown to be capable of serving the global talent pool allowing anyone to contribute to creating and improving digital commonswe provide multidisciplinary technical and strategic support from leading domain experts and thus speed up market readiness we scale up projects seeking to mainstream the commons approach everywhere we can we provide mentorship on open source compatible business models and set up business circles with successful foss entrepreneurs we provide access to reliable legal infrastructureour work contributes to strengthening the european technosocial ecosystem of the commons and creating a healthy economic underpinning for long term sustainability together with our community our goal is to steer towards the internet our societies deserve
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magnetic multiscale modelling suite
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magnetic materials are essential for many applications in energy information and communication technologies however the complex phenomena at different length and time scales often limit the development of new magnetic materials and devices the goal of this project is to develop a magnetic multiscale modeling suite that will allow the design and optimisation of magnetic materials and devices based on multiscale modelling characterisation and numerical optimisation to achieve interoperability between software and analysis tools we will establish a domain ontology for magnetic materials we will collaborate with eu magnet industry to create standards for linking simulation software for magnetic materials from first principles simulations and micromagnetics to device level simulators mammos will use artificial intelligence ai to fuse modeling and characterization data ai methods will identify and correct systematic errors in the simulation data enabling more accurate predictions moreover ai models can fill gaps where measurements are not available ai models can also serve as a surrogate in multiobjective optimisation optimisation will guide further experiments or simulations reducing the development time in mammos we will apply this approach to speed up the development of permanent magnets with reduced critical elements for electric machines and to optimise the layout of magnetic field sensors for high linearity range the mammos software will be validated against benchmarks defined according to the industrial requirements for electric machine and sensor design the multiscale magnetic materials modeling suite will be made open source to enable easy access to highend simulation tools interoperability will facilitate data sharing and reuse among researchers and industries interpretable machine learning will reveal insights into the physics and chemistry of magnetic materials and guide the discovery of new materials for the european green deal
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remoteworking multiple impacts in the age of disruptions socioeconomic transformations territorial rethinking and policy actions
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today rw is mostly conceived as an arrangement enabling flexible work organization however remaking contends that rw can be more than that if the multiple effects induced by rw on individuals business models and the socioeconomic sphere are properly understood and addressed by policymakers it might become a lever contributing to shaping ongoing social economic and spatial structural changes at the basis of remaking there is a profound consideration of the ongoing megatrends ie digital transformation flexibilization of production models that have initiated rw and of the recent shocks ie the pandemic and russias war in ukraine that have consolidated the diffusion of different forms of rw through this angle the multiple effects induced by rw call for rigorous analyses to support decisionmakers in balancing opportunities and problems linked to rw for a potential rethinking of territories namely in rural areas remaking aims at delivering a policyoriented framework reflecting the new and multifaceted realities of rw facilitating policymakers to adopt placebased policies balancing the opportunities and risks of rw and sharing practices to foster mutual learning on rw in the novel scenario of megatrends and shocks these objectives will be achieved through participatory research activities across 4 case studies each addressing a different form of rw digital nomadism postpandemic highskilled in hitech sectors and enforced remote workers the 4 case studies encompass overall 7 countriesitaly greece portugal germany czech republic ukraine ireland for each country 1 secondtier city and 1 rural area will be studied remaking generates an impact on sociospatial transformation processes across secondtier cities and rural areas in terms of improved planning design and implementation of multilevel policy promotion of territorial socioeconomic resilience and development and advanced understanding of rw multiple impacts
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safe and sustainable by design integrated approaches for impact assessment of advanced materials
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sunrise will develop an overarching integrated impact assessment framework iiaf designed to support ssbd decision makingalong lifecycle stages and value chains of advanced materials adma and their products the iiaf will be a 3tiered approach witheach tier corresponding to an integrated methodology for health environmental social and economic impact assessment supportedby a toolbox targeting a different group of users at different stages of the innovation process and requiring a different level of dataand expertise to enable these methodologies to account for stakeholder tradeoffs in decision making we will develop them in a cocreative process that balances the perspectives and interests of key actors from industry including smes regulation policy consultancy academia and the civil society to facilitate costefficient generation of input data for the iiaf we will develop and apply integrated approaches to testing and assessment iata new approach methodologies nams as well as screening level and more advanced sustainability assessment tools based on environmental and social lifecycle assessment lifecycle costing and circularity analysis the iiaf its integrated impact assessment methodologies and the toolbox of newly proposed methods and tools will be provided as an open fair web platform including a database designed to support impactsbased decision making for future adma these outcomes will be tested and demonstrated in industrially relevant case studies the goal is to foster acceptance and support for the iiaf platform and the newly developed approaches to ensure their adoption and implementation by the stakeholders the new knowledge generated in the project will be transferred to public authorities at the eu and national levels to support them in the implementation of ssbdrelated policies for chemicals and materials based on improved understanding of potential safety and sustainability tradeoffs
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design for igatype discretization workflows
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after more than a decade of research isogeometric approaches are starting to make inroads into commercial solvers and thus starting to be relevant in the industrial practice outstanding challenges still exist in the use of the underlying cad technologies and in particular in the use of trimmingthe main objective of the gecko project is to help solving the outstanding difficulties by improving the current state of the art and by integrating academic research within the industrial workflow this will be achieved by ensuring that opensource solvers developed in the academia for both solid and fluid dynamics are able to use as an input domain any cad geometry even in cases in which the geometrical definition is not optimal ie poorly defined or dirty geometries in this regard an efficient and robust solver design must be implemented to be capable of performing seamless designthroughanalysis workflows the goal will inherently imply collaborating with the prepost processing industry represented in the proposal by the company betacae with solver vendors dynamore and end users idiada to ensure that a smooth path is defined to allow such convergence the overall project outcome will be to form a new cohort of experts on the topic and to enhance the open source tools and operational workflow so that they can effectively complement commercial based approaches this in turn will allow addressing relevant bottlenecks as identified by the industrial partners so that the solution can be eventually backported into commercial solutions another important objective in the gecko project is to empower and generalize the currently available solutions when dealing with complex nonlinear models solvers in computational fluid dynamics cfd computational solid mechanics csm acoustics vibroacoustics reduced order models rom and surface mapping
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recovering plasmafacing components temperatures in fusion devices from ir camera measurements
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infrared ir cameras are key diagnostics to monitor and control plasmafacing components pfcs in fusion devices nevertheless the use of allmetallic pfcs with low and variable emissivity 0105 makes it difficult to obtain a correct surface temperature measurement the radiance collected by the ir camera includes both the thermal radiation emitted by the target and parasitic radiation coming from the targets surroundings furthermore target emissivity changes with the surface temperature and roughness this causes significant errors in the surface temperature measurement that we need to address for achieving high power and safe plasma operation inaccurate interpretation of ir temperature measurement could endanger machine safety temperature underestimation or on the contrary lead to unnecessary pulse interruptions that reduce the overall performance of the machine temperature overestimation the current approach is to convert the radiance collected by each pixel in an apparent using a physical relationship between emitted radiance and temperature plancks law because a portion of the collected radiance is due to reflection on the target a systematic error is made this method is unable to recover the portion of reflected radiance and to deduce the correct temperature of the target using only the emitted radiance the proposed technique in this project is to use a digital twin of the machine and to make in it assumptions on the temperatures of the different elements of the machine in order to simulate the images that would be measured under these supposed conditions by comparing to the real image measured by the camera and using optimization techniques the assumptions on the parameters can be updated until the simulated and measured images are close enough it is then deduced that the assumptions made on the parameters of the digital twin are correct and that they correspond to the real temperatures in the machine
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sic composite claddings lwr performance optimization for nominal and accident conditions
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the fukushima daiichi event in 2011 demonstrated the need for enhanced nuclear energy safety becoming a major driving force for global investments in accidenttolerant fuels atfs over the past decade candidate atf cladding material concepts that are being developed in replacement of the standard zirconiumbased alloy zircaloy fuel cladding materials used in light water reactors lwrs must outperform commercial zircaloys under nominal operation hightemperature transient 1200c and accident 1200c conditions sicsic composites are a rather revolutionary atf cladding material concept exhibiting inherent refractoriness pseudoductility and a lack of accelerated oxidation during a lossofcoolant scenario due to their unique potential in meeting the stringent property requirements of the atf cladding application sicsic composites have already claimed large global investments despite these investments all stateoftheart variants of the sicsic composite cladding material concept must still overcome inherent shortcomings prior to their perspective deployment two important weaknesses are their inadequate compatibility with the coolant water and steam and the early 2 dpa saturation of radiationinduced swelling during nominal operation scorpion strives for a radical improvement in the performance of sicsic composite fuel claddings by highly innovative material tailoring on the nanoscale so as to limit hydrothermal corrosion and radiation swelling while also modifying the fibrematrix interface for better stability under irradiation and in hightemperature oxidizing environments scorpion is an atf applicationdriven international collaboration between europe the usa and japan which combines multidisciplinary scientific excellence stakeholder knowhow and cuttingedge manufacturing approaches to produce proofofconcept sicsic composite cladding materials with a radically optimized performance for geniiiii lwr service environments
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v2x cell free massive mimo networks with active ris from analytical optimization to federated machine learning
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the reconfigurable intelligent surfaces ris cellfree cf massive multipleinput multipleoutput mmimo and vehicletoeverything v2x are key technologies for nextgeneration wireless communication ie beyond 5g and 6g the cf mmimo involves deploying many aps in a large geographical area to jointly serve all users v2x allows vehicle user equipment vues to communicate with base stations pedestrians and other vehicles the high mobility of vues leads to frequent handovers and channel ageing this makes the cf mmimo ideal for v2x since handovers are eliminated to reduce the impact of channel ageing more aps must be deployed which increases the power consumption the ris comprises many passive reflecting elements res which can independently induce phase and amplitude change with marginal power needs thus the ris can improve the spectralenergy efficiency seee however the passive ris suffers from doublefading attenuation which may be detrimental for vues this proposal seeks to analyze the seee of the active ris arisaided cf mmimo enabled for v2x each ap serves vues with the aid of multiple ariss we will derive closedform solutions for the uplinkdownlink se by assuming imperfect channel state information spatially correlated rician channels and channel ageing for the aris while increasing the reflected signal amplitude improves the desired signal it also enhances the noise also the aris requires extra power to amplify the signal which grows the network power consumption the tradeoff between the se and ee will be analyzed to identify the best operating regions increasing the aps or vues transmit power may increase the se but saturates at a point due to interference therefore we seek to jointly optimize the power aris amplitude and phase with the objectives of 1 maximizing the sum se 2 maximizing the ee finally we propose a federated learning algorithm for csi forecasting to mitigate channel ageing effects
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preclinical development of a 3rdgeneration interleukin2 targeted to inflammatory sites
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as major players in the regulation of immune responses regulatory t cells tregs are important therapeutic targets for autoimmune and inflammatory diseases interleukin2 il2 used at low doses il2ld stimulate and expand tregs in vivo while 1stgeneration native il2ld are currently under extensive clinical evaluation pharmaceutical companies are developing 2ndgeneration il2 muteins with improved halflife and activitywe aim to develop 3rdgeneration il2 specifically targeting inflammatory sites il2it by using antibodies abs against oxidation specific epitopes ose that are both universal markers and mediators of inflammation il2oseab fusion proteins should allow dampening of local inflammation by a doublehit mechanism involving ab neutralization of proinflammatory ose and il2 stimulation of tregsas a proof of concept we designed a first il2it in which an il2n88r mutein is fused to an scfv from a prototypic antiose ab this il2it i binds to il2 receptors and ose ii has an extended halflife and iii superior therapeutic efficacy compared to native il2 in miceour general objectives are to design an optimized il2it by testing combinations of different antiose ab with il2 and il2 muteins and to complete its preclinical development in mice and macaques we will validate the use of il2it in cardiovascular diseases cvd ie atherosclerosis vasculitis myocardial infarction and sleassociated cvd as these conditions have been shown to be improved by treg infusions native il2 and oseabs in mice carried by leading experts in the use il2 oseabs models of cvd and clinical trials with native il2 the successful validation of an il2it will open a new era for highly selective and effective immunotherapies based on treg stimulation for diseases that represent a leading cause of death and morbidity furthermore it will validate the broader concept of targeting any therapeutic molecule to inflammatory sites
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enhancing bioavailability of beneficial polyphenolic compounds in food via advanced materials engineering
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a diet rich in plantbased foods abundant in beneficial polyphenolic compounds pcs is pivotal in preventing civilizationrelated diseases pcs are valued for their robust antioxidant properties and prebiotic potential however their inherent instability and sensitivity to environmental factors and processing methods pose challenges rapid oxidation and limited bioavailability in the human body underscore the need for effective stability enhancers and delivery systems in principle the encapsulation technique provides prolonged and controlled release of food ingredients and increases the stability and bioavailability of bioactive compounds the complexity of the capsule design however has consumed considerable resources in the food science field but has yet to result in satisfactory results in terms of pcs deliverythis project offers a fresh perspective by treating capsule design as a materials engineering task we aim to leverage cuttingedge material design preparation and characterization techniques to enhance the bioavailability of encapsulated pcs our approach will involve layerbylayer methods to create model systems with precise control over the morphology of polysaccharide and protein encapsulation layers cofocal microscopy sem imaging and nanomechanics will provide insights into structure stability and pc release in vitro to optimize layer composition efficiently we will integrate robotaided experimentation and machine learningthese efforts will culminate in developing a material acceleration platform a versatile methodology for designing polyphenolic compound delivery systems for food applicationsto achieve these objectives the researcher will be provided trainingthroughresearch in a broad spectrum of preparation and characterization techniques aimed at layerbylayer systems and datadriven experimentation approaches such as the design of experiments and bayesian optimization
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the structure of normativity
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some of the core fields of philosophy including moral philosophy value theory and epistemology are at their heart concerned with normative questions questions about what is good or bad right or wrong justified or unjustified these questions concern the content of judgements that human beings are constantly making and that structure our way of thinking feeling and acting but while there is wide agreement in contemporary philosophy that normative judgements form a unified and important category of human thought philosophers still struggle to understand what normativity actually isone highly attractive hypothesis is that normativity can be analysed in terms of reasons ie in terms of the factors that count in favour of or against actions or attitudes but the systematic exploration of this reasonsfirst approach is still lacking reasons f1rst aims to undertake this muchneeded investigation fostering multidisciplinary conversations the project will explore the reasonsfirst approach on a large scale it seeks to address recent challenges to the reasonsfirst approach and to show that it prevails over alternative approaches to understanding normativity reasons f1rst thus pursues a twofold objective i to assess the merits and demerits of the reasonsfirst approach compared to alternative proposals and ii to work out in detail how different normative phenomena including values obligations and rights the justification of beliefs as well as appropriateness norms for emotions can be explained in terms of reasons building on the work of a multidisciplinary research team reasons f1rst aims at nothing less than a fundamental understanding of one of the most important concepts of contemporary philosophy
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one health sustainability partnership between euafrica for food security
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nestler is a joint project between the eu and african member states designed to promote onehealth sustainable partnership the project aims to bring together interdisciplinary technological advances to effectively monitor the wellbeing of animals plants and humans in a holistic approach the complementarity between the stakeholders will extend upon the ongoing initiatives from farm2fork strategies that have resulted in integrated software systems and solutions the novelty of the nestler project lies in the development and integration of advanced remote sensing technologies the project platform will develop software interfaces for ingesting satellite data sources along with video streams captured from unmanned aerial vehicles and other iot devices installed for monitoring the environmental and animal wellbeing the largevolume of data ingested into the platform will be subjected to additional processing for the extraction of intuitive insights with the assistance of machine learning algorithms and deeplearning network architectures the extracted insights will be translated into predictive models affecting onehealth sustainability programme using the machine automation additionally the nestler project will also undertake research activities to investigate the impact of insect protein on the circular economy for the wellbeing of animals the project will develop methodologies for edible insect farming which will be in animal farming the project will also conduct research studies on the impact of animal waste in cropbased farming in complementary to the analysis of health benefits the project will also undertake efforts to evaluate the economic sustainability of such farming practices which will lead to the setup to joint euafrica joint task force on onehealth sustainability the outcome of the project will result in a transition from a linear economy to a circular economy delivering sustained growth and development
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wind turbine blades end of life through open hubs for circular materials in sustainable business models
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a sustainable circular economy in the wind sector requires to solve the end of life problematic of the wind turbine blades prioritizing environmental factors and fairly sharing the efforts to overcome the technologic economic and social barriers among all the key actors to this end eolohubs will develop 3 open hubs to codesign cocreate and demonstrate new technologies organizational structures business models and legal recommendations to implement ce according to the needs of the different european regions the knowledge hub will connect stakeholders to effectively collaborate on similar initiatives sharing data and spilling over good practices to replicate success stories during and after the project the other 2 hubs will build a largescale demonstration covering the full value chain for wtb reusing and recycling from the dismantling to the valorisation in heavy composite sectors through efficient waste recycling solutions while specific needs of eol composites in wind technology are representing the onshore hub will include the necessity of implementing a zeropollution and mobile system for dismantling onshore technologies without jeopardise the environment and maximising the recovering of paints and coatings as well as enabling the recyclability of chemical building blocks solvolysis the multisectorial and offshore hub will include the necessity of adapting current high volume composite recycling technologies pyrolysis to obtain a high yield of rgf and cgf in a zerowaste approach collaborating with other sectors as well as to demonstrate how to prepare the gateways for offshore technologies to connect to the new value chain for recycling wtb in this way eolohubs will create a longterm collaboration of key actors with access to relevant demonstration scenarios to ensure the recycling of almost 90 of the wtb materials creating a circular economy that generates jobs and reduce greenhouse gas emission by 2030
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malaysian reclaimed landscapes urbanization heritage and sustainability along the littoral
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mareland is an interdisciplinary project and ethnographic study of land reclamation along the malaysian littoral reclamation is the act of creating new land and artificial islands from the sea the approach that the state and developers are taking is reminiscent of neocolonial and neoliberal conceptions of the mare nullius nobodys sea an empty space to be transformed by largescale construction projects many are concerned about the socioecological effects for the environment and coastal communities on the one hand reclaimed landscapes are being planned for the development of hightech fantasies of a luxurious lifestyle in a greener and smarter environment on the other hand such projects are intended to transform spaces that nevertheless represent enduring heritage such as fisheries seascapes and biodiversity reclaimed landscapes thus emerge as contested spaces where what is not considered heritage becomes attractive for development mareland explores the competing discourses of sustainability and cultural heritage held by a variety of actors situated at the intersection of urban anthropology and critical heritage studies the project will examine two underresearched themes a environmental activism and the critique of heritage hierarchies and b the study of urbanization at sea through ethnographic research in two field sites interviews and the organization of codesign activities with local stakeholders the project seeks 1 to advance empirical knowledge on practices related to the right to the cityright to the sea and the ways environmental activism and discourses on sustainability and heritage conservation unfold on the ground 2 to advance theoretical knowledge on the masterplans and compensation policies at work around yettobebuiltislands and 3 to develop a toolkit that disseminates solutions to conflicts over land reclamation by using ethnographic evidence to reshape policyoriented practices in land reclamation
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complex contagion of childcare strategies amongst lowincome parents
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background high quality childcare greatly improves outcomes in later life yet childcare access and usage are distributed unevenly leading to amplified inequalities in later life outcomes parents from lowincome households are 50 less likely to use formal childcare services than highincome households and use them when the child is older and less intensely research has shown that cost location and quality of childcare effects usage yet policy solutions aimed at removing these barriers have not reduced inequalities in usageaim in this project sociological economic demographic and social policy perspectives are synthesized within a framework of complex contagions to investigate how the use of formal childcare diffuses across low income populations with the aim of identifying barriers to uptake in formal childcareapproach this project breaks through the state of the art to more clearly describe why some childcare strategies that use formal childcare dont spread to low income households with a complex contagion people only adopt a new behaviour if they are repeatedly exposed to it from multiple diverse actors in their network low income households have personal networks with long weak ties and high multilayer clustering that make adopting new childcare strategies unlikely this project therefore examines how the childcare strategies present in work family and neighbourhood networks influences the childcare strategies of low income householdsinnovation impact the analysis will draw on unprecedented linked administrative and survey data to study the diffusion of childcare strategies network data are used in combination with multichannel sequence analysis and other longitudinal methods to identify the role of networks in shaping childcare strategies the project will completely reframe our understanding of not only childcare strategies but also parallel areas of social policy and the wider study of behaviour diffusion in
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reassessing phosphorus removal by employing classical and fermentative metabolism of polyphosphate accumulating organisms in complex carbon environments
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the urban wastewater treatment directive adopted by the eu acknowledges enhanced biological phosphorus removal ebpr as a sustainable process that prevents eutrophication saves marine assets estimated at 500 billion and counters depletion of phosphorus ore ebpr is mediated microbially by polyphosphate accumulating organisms paos but our understanding is limited to identifying ca accumulibacter as a globally dominant pao that utilises volatile fatty acids as carbon substrate however a variety of paos exists in fullscale wastewater treatment plants wwtp that display metabolic versatility in the assimilation or fermentation of complex carbon substrates such as amino acids and sugars the remapcarbon action will explore the metabolic versatility of paos using complex carbon substrates an interdisciplinary approach involving engineering principles multiomics analyses and advanced modelling techniques will be implemented under the supervision of prof mark van loosdrecht tu delft i will study the metabolism of paos using isotope labelling techniques kinetic and stoichiometric characterisation and metabolic models during the secondment at aalborg university with prof per nielsen i will gain complementary skills in bioinformatics and microspectroscopy techniques to extend ebpr application to complex carbon substrates in wwtps an industrial placement is planned at the end of the fellowship to exploit research outputs with royal haskoningdhv in leading international and intersectoral collaborations i aim to develop research skills project management and communication abilities to improve overall effectiveness as a researcher independently leading this action will provide me experience and confidence to undertake ambitious projects and collaborations in my academic career overall this action will contribute to europes knowledgebased economy by defining how paos turn the wheels of the biogeochemical phosphorus cycle in natural environments
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production of a second phase of hydrophobic aromatics with solventtolerant pseudomonas
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replacement of fossil chemicals with biological counterparts has been widely accepted as a vital pursuit to increase the sustainability of our chemical and material industries synthetic biology and metabolic engineering enable us to produce a plethora of chemicals with microbes but the majority of these never make it past the proofofprinciple stage this is especially the case for dropin bulk aromatics like styrene or benzene the main reason for this is that such products are too toxic to ordinary production microbes in prosper i aim to overcome this hurdle and demonstrate the efficient microbial production of hydrophobic aromatic chemicals using solventtolerant pseudomonas i will engineer this unique extremophile to break the solubility barrier of these chemicals forming a second phase of product this second phase provides a virtually endless product sink and it enables extremely simple downstream recoverythe biobased production of a second phase of such chemicals has thus far never been shown i believe that this relates to a fundamental problem in biotechnology production tolerance ie tolerance of the producing organism to the produced product rather than to an externally added chemical as it is usually studied in prosper i intend to generate deep mechanistic insights into the processes governing both types of tolerance and to leverage these insights to open up a new field of biotechnological production of hydrophobic compounds to achieve this i will develop new methods to analyze intracellular solvent concentrations build a pseudomonas chassis with enhanced production tolerance to hydrophobic solvents and enable production of solvents like styrene ethylbenzene and even benzenei am in a unique position to achieve this goal with over 15 years of experience in the engineering of pseudomonas as a workhorse in biotechnology the study of solventtolerance and the development and application of synthetic biology tools and metho
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lithium ion batteries a microscopic view
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lithiumion batteries libs play an important role in our daily life with a variety of applicants to this day significant resources have been dedicated to the development of highperformance libs particularly the research necessary to identify the optimum electrolyte materials to solve the safety issue up to this point polymer electrolytes are widely investigated for their potential to improve batteries safety given the relative high ionic conductivity around 103 scm polyethylene oxide peo is frequently utilized as the polymer matrix in this scenario but compared to the commercial liquid electrolyte the ionic conductivity of polymer electrolyte needs to be improved for at least ten times it is widely acknowledged that the transportation of li is directly related to the segmental and backbone motions of the polymer indicating to improve the ionic conductivity by structure optimization of polymer instead of using the traditional trial and error method modern innovative studies intend to develop a microscopic picture of the liion transportation process to instruct the polymer optimization but it is difficult with inhouse laboratory methods this project aims at designing a polymer with high ionic conductivity to achieve this goal the microscopic view of li transportation in polymer will be elucidated through molecular dynamics md simulation and the polymer dynamics will be clarified with md simulation and quasielastic neutron scattering qens
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analogue inmemory computing with advanced device technology
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every day we generate process and use a massive amount of data searching a keyword on the internet choosing a movie for the weekend and booking our next holiday are just a few simple actions that rely on dataintensive algorithms in the cloud such as data search recommendation and page ranking the energy cost of computation is high it has been recently reported that training a relatively large neural network produces the same carbon dioxide of 5 cars in their whole lifetime data centres use an estimated 200 terawatthours each year corresponding to 1 of the global demand with the spectre of an energyhungry future it is essential to identify novel concepts novel algorithms and novel hardware for streamlining the computing processmy preliminary research has shown that computing energy requirements can be reduced by closedloop inmemory computing climc that can solve linear algebra problems in just one computational step in climc the time to solve a certain problem does not increase with the problem size in contrast to other computing concepts such as digital and quantum computers thanks to the sizeindependent computing time around 100 ns climc requires 5000 times less energy than topclass digital computers at the same bit precision these preliminary results show that climc is a promising new computing concept to reduce the energy consumption of data processingmy project will develop the device technology the circuit topologies the systemlevel architectures and the application portfolio to fully validate the climc concept a novel memory technology that is immune to wire resistance effects will be developed climc integrated circuits will be designed with standard cmos technology systemlevel architecture and application exploration will further support the scalability and feasibility of the concept to demonstrate climc as a primary contender among the computing technologies with improved energy efficiency
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melt electrowriting of multilayered scaffolds for osteochondral defect repair mems
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an osteochondral oc defect is a focal area of joint damage that involves both the articular cartilage and the underlying subchondral bone such joint damage is strongly associated with the development of premature osteoarthritis motivating the development of novel strategies to regenerate oc defects 3d printing is enabling the manufacturing of geometrically complex biomaterial implants with user defined compositions and architectures which can potentially be used as single stage offtheshelf scaffolds for treating complex injuries despite significant progress in this field 3d printed scaffolds capable of regenerating oc defects remain elusive this can potentially be linked to the spatial resolution possible using traditional additive manufacturing techniques the melt electrowriting mew technique has recently emerged as a novel additive manufacturing platform capable of producing polymeric scaffolds with fiber diameters in the submicron range in a highly controllable manner we have recently developed mew scaffolds that support superior bone regeneration compared to scaffolds produced using traditional additive manufacturing techniques furthermore we have generated preliminary data demonstrating that multilayered scaffolds generated by mew are capable of enhancing the repair of critically sized oc defects in a preclinical large animal model the mems project aims to further enhance the regenerative capacity of these mew oc scaffolds by i optimising their architecture and ii functionalizing their surface with extracellular matrix ecm components supportive of tissuespecific regeneration the output of mems will be an offtheshelf implant capable of directing endogenous oc defect regeneration without the need for delivering exogenous cells to the defect site
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entanglement of an array of massive magnetically levitated superconducting microparticles on a chip
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quantum states of massive objects have fascinated us since the inception of quantum mechanics nowadays molecules of thousands of atoms and nanomechanical resonators weighing picogram can be brought into quantum states this capability enables tests of the validity of quantum mechanics and provides new avenues for quantum technologies entangled states are particularly relevant in this context as they unlock multipartite quantum correlations that amongst others enable precise measurements beyond the standard quantum limit and novel tests for the interplay between quantum mechanics and gravity however no experiment to date demonstrated entanglement between a scalable number of massive particles which would access a novel parameter regime in terms of mass quantum correlation and particle number superqlev will fill this gap and demonstrate entanglement of the centerofmass motion of an array of magnetically levitated superconducting microparticles on chip this achievement will break new ground by exploring multipartite quantum states of massive objects ranging over six orders of magnitude in mass from pico to microgram superqlev will make this possible by merging two technologies into a unique experimental platform the first technology is magnetic levitation of superconducting microparticles which offers the capability of levitating massive particles at ultralow mechanical dissipation my group has made pioneering contributions by realizing chipbased magnetic levitation of superconducting microparticles the second technology is superconducting quantum circuits that offer a versatile toolbox for quantum control superqlev will merge these two platforms to reach quantum control over the motion of levitated superconducting particles via inductive coupling to superconducting circuits this hitherto unexplored hybrid quantum platform allows superqlev to conduct groundbreaking proofofprinciple experiments in quantum sensing and fundamental physics
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thematic european rural bioeconomy network therbn
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the objective of therbn is to put into operation an euwide multiactor ma thematic network tn for knowledge sharing on innovative solutions for sustainable circular bioeconomy cb applicable by small farms and foresters practitioners at a local scale in rural areas such a framework will contribute to empowering practitioners pps solving the gap between available and viable cb solutions and the problems they face in their everyday starting from their most urgent needs on the management and use of biological byproducts and residues therbn will identify existing solutions from grassroots from pps innovations developed by operational groups ogs and research applied results from national and eu projects to produce practiceoriented easily understandable materials to be shared in national and eu demo days and training and through channels most consulted by pps therbn tn will assure open access to longterm digital structures like eufarmbook and eucap network complemented by the therbn platform to facilitate multilanguage access and a social environment to interact among and integrate cbinterested ogs tns project communities thus enhancing the crossborder dimensions and effects of therbn tn and reducing the fragmentation in knowledge and innovation the ma therbn tn will connect with the key actors researchers advisors innovation brokers and structures national and regional akis extension services advisors networks necessary to encompass the transition of small rural farms and foresters towards climate neutrality and more sustainable and resilient operation bottomup mabased dialogue will yield evidence on the current pps needs the remaining gaps for cb solutions that new innovative products and services can cover and policy briefs proposing policies or instruments to support the adoption of smallscaled cb solutions by small farms
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lowdimensional ferroelectrics for advanced electronic and biomedical devices
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the felowd project at the institute of solidstate physics of the university of latvia issp ul aims to boost research in lowdimensional ferroelectric fe materials for electronic and biomedical applications this research field is now burgeoning due to multiple discoveries of novel functionalities and various applications of fes in ambient energy harvesting flexible sensors smart implants piezocatalytic devices scaffolds for tissue regeneration and many more this initiative plans to establish issp ul as a leader in this field by creating a stateoftheart research laboratory and making structural enhancements for sustainable growth by appointing an outstanding era chair holder dr andrei kholkin h66 felowd will attract top talents prevent braindrain and promote open knowledge sharing within research innovation system focusing on industry collaboration and intensive transition from lab innovations to market viability the project will significantly contribute to european research area objectives through its dedication to advancing lowdimensional ferroelectrics felowd will ensure the development of novel fe materials and structures with exceptional performance providing pathways to nextgeneration technologies for localized energy sources smart biomedical systems wearable sensors piezoelectric scaffolds etc which will have a significant impact on scientific and technological development in latvia and europe the development of fe devices will definitively improve the european position in the corresponding markets and bridge the gap between fundamental research technology development and practical applications of lowdimensional ferroelectrics
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discovery total chemical synthesis and validation of mirrorimage dnanobodies
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the central role of molecularlytargeted therapeutics and imaging probes in translational research entails the development of an evergrowing arsenal of chemical biologics endowed with optimal in vivo properties in this regard mabs and their derivatives eg adcs still suffer from unsettled drawbacks involving difficulties in production and characterization leading to heterogeneous conjugates in terms of size potency and toxicity chemical modifications on mabs are highly unreliable due to their complex structure a central problem in this discipline where heterogeneous drugtoantibody ratio dar and conjugation site represent significative limitations immunogenicity is a major drawback which affects humanized as well as fullyhuman mabs and is exacerbated by long halflives cases of unwanted activation of the immune system reportedly degenerated to lifethreatening conditions such as acute anaphylaxis serum sickness and cytokine release syndrome their bulky size 150 kda hinders their extravasation impairing their efficiency to enter tumors nanobodies nbs are the smallest naturallyderived antibody fragments 1314 kda that retain antigenbinding affinities in the same range of mabs nm to pm affinity range while having extremely reduced halflives 15 min when not bound to their target thanks to a fast renal excretion mirrorbody intends to push the boundaries of targeted chemical biologics via an interdisciplinary approach that exploits both immunology and synthetic chemistry techniques for the generation of synthetic dnanobodies that bind natural ltargets with high affinity such unprecedented synthetic dnbs will be endowed with improved biocompatibility and will enable plugandplay approaches for the controlled conjugation of diverse moieties
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digital tools to help agroforestry meet climate biodiversity and farming sustainability goals linking field and cloud
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agroforestery af has already proven its potential for farm sustainability climate change mitigation adaptation biodiversity preservation and soil conservation however af performances are contextdependent and many barriers hinder its adoption such as lack of tools for decisionmaking assessing economic environmental social benefits and monitoring of policies and their impact on af digitaf will boost af implementation in the eu and beyond thanks to the codevelopment of digital tools tailored to the needs and concerns of digitaf target groups to engage actors whose decisions impact af implementationdigitaf will 1 support policyactors at various scales to design more efficient policies supporting af adoption carbon farming 2 provide tools helping practitioners farmers deal with the complexity of af systems digitaf will allow them to optimize the design and management of agroforestry systems at field and farm scale 3 enhance capacities of actors to assess quantify and market the economic environmental and social performance and benefits of afthe enduser centred multiactor approach of digitaf will be made possible by implementing 6 living labs ll in italy germany netherland united kingdom finland and the czech republic opensource tools will be codeveloped thanks to the existing or novel practical knowledge scientific evidence and models they will be tested with the endusers from ll and improved thanks to their feedback larger dissemination to target groups will be ensured through digitaf partners gathering members and networks across eudigitaf consortium brings together 25 partners from 20 countries from the eu associated countries and beyond composed of rtos 9 universities 5 smes 6 european and international organisations 4 ngo and cooperative 1 digitaf consortium and the ll cover all af value chain actors thus efficiently supporting af implementation in the eu
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communitydriven farming for the atlantic and arctic sea basins through regenerative aquaculture
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to restore and protect ocean ecosystems within a sustainable blue economy in line with the objectives of the mission restore our ocean and waters by 2030 we urgently need new business models for regenerative aquaculture informed by best scientific evidence on environmental impacts and developed in partnership with societal stakeholders to encourage adoption such practices must be technically operationally and economically viable for ocean farmers with clear benefits to ecosystem services community resilience market potential and job creation cfaarer will deliver a roadmap and guidance codesigned with stakeholders to support ocean farmers in the atlantic and arctic sea basin to develop communitydriven business models for regenerative ocean farming and policymakers to take enabling actions cfaarer builds on prior eu projects reviewing evidence on socioeconomic and environmental impacts and successful community business models to establish a robust case for adoption working with ocean farmers and coastal communities at sites in norway and ireland we will analyse technical operational economic environmental and social needs and create guidance on developing sitespecific communityled business plans we will codesign feasibility reports and evidencebased business plans with members of the norwegian seaweed association cluster of 80 ocean farmers replicate lessons via a new irish seaweed association and ensure longterm sustainability through a new community of practice on the established connecting nature enterprise platform policy recommendations will highlight barriers supports and investments needed from local national and eu authorities to strengthen and scale regenerative communityled aquaculture in the atlantic and arctic sea basin clustering and engagement with ocean mission projects and partner networks will identify opportunities to embed communityled business models for regenerative aquaculture in future mission actions
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common envelope transients progenitors precursors and properties of their outbursts
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common envelope evolution cee is a crucial phase in binary evolution as it is responsible for the formation of many of the most exciting systems in astrophysics including sources of gravitational waves despite its importance there are several unanswered questions that hamper the urgently needed progress in this field what systems enter cee what happens during cee how the cee remnants evolve recently a new type of astrophysical transients called luminous red novae lrne has emerged as direct observational evidence of the dynamical ejection of the ce in binaries my work on their progenitor systems and their late time evolution has shown their potential to study the initial and final state of binary systems entering cee the imminent start of operations of the large transient surveys blackgem and lsst provides a unique opportunity to bring cee observational studies to the next level with lrne population studies the aim of this project is to study the different stages of cee in massive binaries using observations of extragalactic lrne the sample will contain 30 transients within 15 mpc from massive binary progenitors with hst archival data my team will use a novel transient selection strategy to identify a fraction of these lrne years before their main outburst and study the extensive mass loss leading to coalescense novel observational and modelling techniques in optical and infrared wavelengths will allow me to derive the energetics chemistry dust content and the geometry of the outbursts my study will provide the so needed evidence of the physical processes that occur before during and after the ejection of the ce in massive binary systems the characteristics of their progenitors and their rate in our local universe this will in turn have fundamental impact on several fields of astrophysics such as binary population synthesis simulations of cee and understanding of mass transfer in the progenitor systems
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a multiscale approach to unsaturated flow in porous media with preisach hysteresis
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experimental evidence indicates that fluid filtration through unsaturated porous media exhibits a hysteretic behavior originating at a microscopic level from surface tension at the point of contact between water and air in the pores as a result the pressuresaturation constitutive relation turns out to be of hysteresis type accurately described with the preisach operator by a thorough fitting procedurethe main objective of the mulphys project is to expand the knowledge about preisach hysteresis for fluid filtration and build new mathematical models for unsaturated porous media employing a multiscale approachthe suitability of the preisach operator in describing the hysteretic behavior of unsaturated porous solids sparked an intense research effort in the community of experts in pdes with hysteresis with the goal of including the preisach operator in mathematical models in these endeavors the presence of a microstructure was neglected with the approach being directly macroscopic another branch of research has considered porous media as objects with a microstructure and has derived the macroscopic description of fluid flow from local behavior in this body of research however porous media are often assumed to be completely saturated so that no hysteresis can occurwith mulphys we will fill the gap between these two research areas employing homogenization techniques to provide a justification of the preisach operator as the correct tool for describing filtration particular attention will be paid to including gravity effects and understanding solidliquid interactions at the microscopic level numerical simulations and experimental data will be instrumental in achieving these objectivespotential applications in the preservation of historic buildings are foreseen thus addressing a european priority and implying significant impact not only for the scientific community but also for the professional sectors and society as a whole
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quantum inspired valuation of circular real estate
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quival will train a new generation of professionals who can develop and apply an innovative climateaware approach to real estate value and valuation aimed at achieving the european aim of becoming co2 neutral before 2050 this is highly needed because the real estate industry is one of the biggest polluting industries that urgently needs to reduce its emissions value and valuation are some of the big drivers of investment decisions and project realisation that shape this industry in practice value and valuation are based on the potential future income generation of real estate without considering environmental and societal values which become practically urgent and relevant with new eu rules and regulations eg esg and sfrd reporting despite this urgency limited scholarly work exists to understand the value of real estate that is co2 neutral throughout its life cycle including production operation dismantling and reusequival conceptualises value and valuation as metaphorical synonyms to quantum mechanics and tests proposed changes in real estate applications quival responds to recent theoretical calls to consider quantum mechanical notions in financial tools and techniques and as a first of its kind conceives this as a design research to explore the merits of quantum mechanical notions to pursue circular real estate this enables value to be understood as a multifaceted phenomenon and valued by observing it in its fluid appearance in the market it is expected that tools and techniques with this comprehension and sensitivity enable new governance and policies to more intrinsically motivate future investments in circular real estatequival is a collaborative network of phd projects that trains and develops quantum inspired approaches to value buildings with a long life and components and materials easily mobile for reuse thereby synthesising recent advances in digital and human valuation techniques for a circular real estate market
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innovative electrochemical co2 conversion to versatile feedstock
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ico2nic will couple developments in polymer membranebased co2 capture technology with a novel gas diffusion electrochemical cell for co2 to formic acid conversion valorisation of formic acid via innovative biological processing routes will deliver high value products and materials by making ccu carbon capture and utilization profitable the ico2nic approach will enable global emitters to capture and valorise waste co2 paving the way for a significant reduction in global emissionsthe ico2nic consortium will form a complete value chain from co2 emitter tupras to end users tupras pg inclusive of carbon capture and purification cpt electrochemical conversion avt and downstream processing bfab npi this industrial representation will enable validation of an integrated business model that has the potential to deliver a viable economic model for all parties without external financial aidleading rtos will support the integration of res through digital monitoring and control systems ide and confirm the cost efficiency environmental performance and scalability of the proposed concept through development of a robust tea and process design sintef and lca tno paving the way for capture of 645 mt of co2 from tupras refineries by 2040 and up to 75 mtpa co2 in the eu refinery sector in the long term
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preparing for optimal phase iiiiv maternal group b streptococcal vaccine trials in africa protect
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two vaccines designed for pregnant women to protect their unborn infant are entering late phase development and will prevent infections from group b streptococcus and respiratory syncytial virus respectively for these vaccines to be approved the vaccine must work effectively without causing any unwanted responses to implement these vaccines in countries with low resources healthcare systems must be strengthened by improving vaccine safety monitoring and surveillance of infection and advancing vaccine delivery vaccine confidence and patient participation the rapid rollout of electronic health records ehr in kenya mozambique malawi and uganda offers an opportunity to use routine data to strengthen reporting of rates of adverse pregnancy neonatal and infant outcomes and any adverse events following immunisation this will be imperative in informing and preparing for future large scale vaccination rollout campaigns our approach will address key gaps in ehr to develop pregnancy registries embedded within national reporting systems to establish this data including baseline rates of pregnancy and infancy outcomes for tetanus and covid19 vaccines currently in use these reporting systems will allow monitoring of potential safety signals once new vaccines are introduced experts in ehr obstetrics and gynaecology paediatrics microbiology clinical trials and implementation research will develop the motivation and tools needed to monitor and evaluate current and future maternal vaccines we will work closely with the who african medicines agency and country stakeholders codeveloping pregnancy registries sentinel site microbiological surveillance systems and maternal vaccination communications toolkits in preparation for the decade of maternal vaccines our programme of work culminates in a network of maternal vaccine trial sites who can rapidly evaluate vaccines in pregnancy from latestage trials through to introduction on a national level
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dynamic technoeconomical scenario simulation model for sustainable waterborne activities and transport
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new sustainable fuel deployment scenarios for the european waterborne community needsdeployment of sustainable energy within an existing transport network is a challenge which requires an independent and transparent analysis and overview to be successful it implies a timely coordination of all stake holders from energy production capacity to storage bunkering logistics in harbours and up to the endusers the inland waterways and maritime transport and waterborne activitiesmuch information about each stake holders their characteristics in terms of technical readiness emission level actual transport capacity costs scalability and impact are available putting all parts of the puzzle together is the aim of the present studywe are ready to apply existing scenario simulation techniques containing among others regional information on transport network and hindcast data of weather conditions for regional energy production to simulate different scenarios of sustainable fuel deployment forcing certain variables as input into the model in order to study its impact on other quantities will help evaluating the viability of certain scenarios or identify bottlenecks and best tactics to overcome themthis dynamic technoeconomic model will hopefully help the commission the member states the regional waterborne community and the harbours evaluating the most efficient pathways towards their energy transition for local to regional scale the amount of details brought into the parameters of the model will allow to run such simulation from micro to macro scalethe model will primarily focus on variables and parameters related to the waterborne community however it will not be closed and will able a possible future inclusion of other sources of energy needs if made available from landbased activity and transport or aviation
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nheterocyclic carbenes on silicon from structure to function
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the significance of cuttingedge nanoelectronics is inherently tied to the utilization and integration of silicon the material is embedded as a semiconductor in a multitude of devices such as nano and microchips for computing given its paramount importance for the hightech industry intense research focuses on manipulating and optimising silicon surfaces silicon coating efforts aim to increase its resistance against harsh conditions temperature high electron potential uv light etc steer its electric conductivity or covalently attach biomolecules for specific applications such as biosensing depending on the objective strategies for surface engineering include techniques such as atomic layer deposition or silanization a fundamentally novel approach to functionalize silicon surfaces has recently been developed by the team of prof frank glorius from the university of münster who described a strategy to immobilize derivatives of nheterocyclic carbenes on a borondoped silicon substrate transposing this concept to industrially applied silicon surfaces such as si100 smartface aims for the following research objectives develop a general strategy for nhc immobilization on silicon study the connection of the molecular nhc structure and surface coverage understand the impact of the coating on the material and finally explore the effect of the surface modification on silicons relevant properties the glorius group has a unique knowledge base in the field of nhcs and surface engineering and simultaneously possesses stateoftheart hardware to analyze fabricated materials given its potentially transformative impact on the field of silicon surface engineering smartface perfectly falls within the scope of the he work programme specifically in the pursuit of developing and mastering the digital and key enabling technologies of the future
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analog polariton simulators
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many physical systems in nature must be described using a huge number of coupled degrees of freedom treating these problems on a classical computer leads to computation times growing exponentially with the system size analog simulators are wellcontrolled systems to which a complex problem can be mapped and from which the physics can be experimentally readouthere we want to develop powerful analog simulators based on semiconductor cavity polaritons lightmatter quasiparticles that have appeared as a versatile platform to explore the physics of bosonic open systems using the fine control we now have in polariton lattices anapolis opens the door to the simulation of a large class of systems subject to external drive and dissipation a regime hardly explored in other platforms outofequilibrium condensation giant kerr nonlinearity optical driving of steadystates are the ingredients we will use in anapolis to explore three scientific objectives1we will study phase fluctuations in polariton condensates and map the system to the kardarparisizhang equation which describes many dynamical nonlinear systems in 2d solving this equation is a challenge raising open questions that no experimental platform has addressed so far2we will resonantly drive polariton lattices with elaborate phase patterns to simulate the physics of charged particles in a magnetic field optically inducing complex valued hoppings we will tailor topological properties for the bogoliubov excitations and explore nonlinear physics on top of a topological superfluid 3we will use cavity lattices under quadratic drive to emulate the physics of the quantum transverse ising model in a drivendissipative context we will use this simulator to find the steady state of the system and explore quantum magnetism and dissipative phase transitionsanapolis will provide unique opportunities to address stochastic phenomena nonlinear and many body physics in a drivendissipative context
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mechanistic understanding of the photoexcited nitroarenemediated olefin ozonolysis
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olefins are feedstocks readily available from petroleum and vegetable biomass with an integral role in the preparation of highvalue materials in particular olefin ozonolysis used to introduce oxygen atoms and convert these molecules into a broad spectrum of synthetic intermediates like aldehydes ketones and carboxylic acidsso far ozonolysis reactions mostly adopted by the bulk chemical industry which uses it on simple materials the fine chemical sectors pharmaceutical and agrochemical industries do not use this reactivity mostly due to safety concerns in handling ozonethe leonori group has recently demonstrated that photoexcited nitroarenes can be used as ozone surrogates for the oxidative cleavage of olefins this project seeks to understand the key mechanistic factors that govern the reactivity so that generalization and application by the broad chemical community might be possiblethe completion of such a timely and relevant mechanistic project at rwth aachen university will be facilitated by generating transferring sharing and disseminating knowledge and will enhance the researchers future career following the training plan envisioned
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the reforming spirit in the age of revolutions the counts of bernstorff commercial monarchy and the invention of modern liberty
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this project offers the first comprehensive account of the counts of bernstorff and the part they played in the making of enlightened reforms in eighteenthcentury denmark through a detailed study of the personal and intellectual networks of johann hartwig ernst von bernstorff 17121772 and his nephew andreas peter von bernstorff 17351797 two reformminded hanoverian counts who served as chief ministers to the danish monarchy reformarchy reconstructs a series of intellectual exchanges between copenhagen geneva and göttingen in so doing the project elucidates the efforts of the bernstorffs to reform the danish monarchy in view of contemporary challenges to the european states system and recovers their main contribution to enlightenment thought that is their vision of modern liberty in a commercial monarchy drawing on intellectual currents introduced to them through the various centres of their networks this vision was moulded by such diverse languages as republicanism monarchism natural law cameralism and political economy the main objectives of the project are thus to map the personal and intellectual networks the bernstorffs to analyse the key concepts of their political vision and to examine the imperial response to global commercial competition that underpinned their enlightened reform programme reconstructing the reforming spirit of the counts of bernstorff reformarchy not only makes an innovating contribution to historical scholarship on enlightened reform it also brings into view the historical and conceptual relationship between freedom and the state by returning the concept of modern liberty to its eighteenthcentury origin in the dialogue between republicanism and monarchism reformarchy offers a novel perspective on our current political imaginary the vision of modern liberty that comes out of this context sees the state not as an impediment to individual freedom but rather as its requisite
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valorization of co2 for low carbon cement
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cement production is responsible for 8 of global co2 emissions which mainly come from the processing of limestone co2valorize proposes a new approach to drastically reduce these emissions by partly replacing some of the limestone content with supplementary cementitious materials scm such materials are additionally carbonated using captured co2 so this partreplacement process utilises captured co2 promising calcium silicates rich scm can come from waste materials such as mine tailings and recycled concrete all of which are available in large quantities the carbonation process of such materials is complex and barely understood to date our networks aim to lay the scientific foundations to create fundamental knowledge on the mechanisms reaction kinetics the physicochemical subprocess and the performance of the modified cement in order to provide a proofofconcept and show that a co2 reduction by 50 per tonne of cement produced is feasible the project is driven by leading companies that represent important parts of the value chain and ensure a fast uptake of the results with the potential to commercialise new equipment processes and software during and after the project the structured approach combines complementary research for each individual project in the academic and industry sector this is accompanied by a balanced mix of highlevel scientific courses and transferable skills delivered by each partner locally and in dedicated training schools and workshops at network level this way each doctoral candidate builds up deep scientific expertise and interdisciplinary knowledge to deliver gamechanging cleantech innovations during and after the project co2valorize is impactdriven and strives for portfolios of highclass joint publications in leading journals and patents the transfer of the results into firstofitskind engineering solutions contribute to the next generation of cement processes that can mitigate climate change
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tunable and reconfigurable nanoacoustics
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in solidstate physics all the properties determined by the atoms position are susceptible to be modified by acoustic phonons acoustic phonons are usually seen as a primary source of unwanted effects in electronics optoelectronics and quantum technologies based on solidstate platforms this project proposes a series of tunable nanodevices where acousticphonons constitute instead a central resource to unveil wavelength conversion phenomena transfer information and simulate systems difficult or impossible to study in optics and electronics the current trend in nanophononics is to engineer acoustic nanodevices to shape the local acoustic density of states tailor the lightmatter interaction or enhance the interactions with other systems based on static and predetermined fixedfunction nanostructures this project takes a radically different direction by incorporating responsive materials that change their elastic properties under external stimuli gesbte compounds and vanadium dioxide present phase transitions that can be triggered thermally optically or electrically and have associated ultrafast changes in their elastic properties these materials widely used in active photonics and electronics will be integrated into nanophononic semiconductor and oxidebased resonators working in the ghzthz rangethe project is organized around three major challenges i to develop hybrid tunable acousticphonon resonators and transducers based on materials presenting structural phase transitions ii to develop reconfigurable nanophononic lattices ie artificial graphene formed by coupled resonators and iii to demonstrate novel acousticphonon wavelength conversion phenomena simulate timedependent hamiltonians and develop dynamical acoustic phonon devices using dynamical structures to control acoustic phonons in the ghzthz range will enable a new dimension in the solidstate physics toolbox
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dualchannel paperbased electroanalytical platform for multiple myeloma care
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multiple myeloma mm is an aggressive type of cancer of plasma cells where fast diagnosis and treatment monitoring is vital especially given the overall low survival rate proteasome a multicatalytic complex essential in damaged protein degradation has been recently established as a biomarker for mm in which elevated levels have been observed in blood plasma of unhealthy individuals as well as its impaired activity has been target for treatment alongside regular chemotherapy padmme addresses increasing contributions on proteasome electrochemical recognition and aims to develop novel interdisciplinary technologies translatable into poct systems for mm care for this we propose the development of sensitive and selective dualchannel platforms comprising conductive polymeric fiber biosensors integrated on paperbased microfluidic supports to simultaneously detect quantity and specific activity of proteasome in blood plasma paper supports ensure disposability and ease of commercialization whilst incorporation of microfluidic paths allows low sample volume requirements and in situ pretreatment steps conductive polymeric fiber scaffolds provide increased signal resolution for the construction of biosensors necessary for the recognition of low concentrations of the biomarker then investigating proteasome at the dualchannel platform in drugtreated and untreated mm cell lines will demonstrate how changes in quantity and specific activity are specifically linked to the disease dynamics the last step will comprise validation of the technology for analysis in blood plasma technology able to improve overall monitoring of mm disease progression and therapeutic efficiency crucial to overcome delays in treatment due to drug resistance complications training through research will allow me to refine my expertise creativity and innovative potential on smart biosensor technologies translated into pointofcare testing devices for cancer care and drug assessment
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attitudes towards intimate partner violence against women from neural networks to daily life experience
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one in three women worldwide has been subjected to either physical andor sexual intimate partner violence in their lifetime by understanding what the roots of intimate partner violence against women ipvaw are and how it manifests as a pattern of behaviour we might be able to prevent and counteract this violence attitudes toward ipvaw significantly shape interpersonal behaviours and societal reactions acting as a factor that contributes to the risk of committing violence yet despite first research it remains unclear how these attitudes are instantiated on a neuronal level and how they shape our daily emotional experience and behaviour the overall goal of the research program neuroipvaw is to provide an explanatory theory of the neural underpinnings mediating attitudes towards ipvaw and a predictive quantitative model capturing this theory towards this goal neuroipvaw will introduce an innovative neuroscientific approach first neuroipvaw will reveal the neural foundations underlying ipvaw attitudes in relation to emotional processing in the mature brain second it will unravel the link between the neural foundation and dailylife experience for maximal efficiency and power in unified theory formation and model building neuroipvaw will employ an integrated interdisciplinary research strategy that combines a largescale noninvasive brain imaging to capture neural underpinnings of ipvaw attitudes b experience sampling assessing dailylife experience in an ecologically valid setting c advanced computational modelling using representational similarity analysis to build a predictive quantitative model of dailylife emotional experience and behaviour through this orchestrated effort neuroipvaw will provide the empirical pieces of evidence for a new theory and model of the neural basis mediating ipvaw attitudes thereby enhancing ipvaw prevention efforts challenging our societal norms and contributing to the progression of gender equality
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global assessment of plant photosynthesis optimization for climate change versus enhanced plant productivity
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millions of years of evolution have produced extraordinary adaptations and solutions for plants to face the naturally excessive solar energy which commonly cannot be fully utilized by the light harvesting pigments of leaves to find a balance between the harvesting of and the protection against the solar radiation conditions all plants employ flexible thermal or nonphotochemical energy dissipation mechanisms yet inherent capacities for these flexible dissipation mechanisms differ between plant species and can change along seasonal conditions but also shortterm physiological strain of the plants the optimized balance between the photochemical and nonphotochemical energy pathways of absorbed radiation is a very dynamic concept which remains physically poorly understood deriving these energy components and assessing them in a global context would greatly advance our knowledge on the basic energy functioning of vegetation making room for possible improvements in food production or understand required capacities to cope with climatic changes with the ambition to quantify actual photosynthesis from space for agricultural management units esa will launch in 2024 the fluorescence explorer flex as 8th earth explorer mission equipped with a novel sensor payload dedicated to the retrieval of solarinduced fluorescence and the reflectance at a highspectral resolution this proposal named photoflux will take a novel approach to spectrally disentangle the photochemical and nonphotochemical components of harvested light building on a quantitative understanding of the energy partitioning within the light reactions not only will this strategy serve a bottomup conceptual understanding of the photosynthetic light harvesting at global scale it will also bring the possibilities to quantitatively assess productivity under the climatic constraints and the need to dissipate the excess energy to keep photosynthesis at optimal rates
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correcting for self the impact of head motion on visual processing and behaviour
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an organisms survival depends on accurately perceiving and interpreting the environment a significant part of our visual stimulations is however generated by our own actions rather than external events for example the retina can experience similar visual stimulus driven by headmovement or by a moving object therefore selfmotion related information is fundamental to contextualize visual stimuli in other words what the eye sees may not be what our brain perceives depending on our actions in mammals the vestibular system reports both the motion and orientation of the head very little is known about the pathways connecting the vestibular system to visual cortical areas and how this signal is integrated with external visual stimuli to ultimately impact behaviour the goal of this project is to unravel the neuronal circuits underlying visual processing during selfmotion in mice thereby providing new insights in sensory processing to this aim i will address the following questions 1 what is the longrange and local connectivity of neurons modulated by head rotation in v1 2 what are the circuit mechanisms and neuronal computations involved in the integration of selfmotion related signals with visual inputs in v1 3 how do head motion inputs to v1 influence visuallyguided actions during behaviour achieving these goals relies on a multidisciplinary experimental strategy based on cuttingedge approaches to monitor and control circuit activity with high spatiotemporal resolution in a celltype specific manner neuroanatomical tracing and computational modelling this experimental strategy combined with my research background in visual and vestibular systems provides a unique opportunity to understand unexplored aspects of sensory processing at both the cellular and systems levels altogether this project will reveal a novel framework to understand how sensory processing operates during selfmotion to guide behaviour
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next generation polymyxin antibiotics optimization and validation
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in the nova erc poc project we present a novel class of semisynthetic polymyxins as an innovative solution to address the inherent toxicity of the polymyxins family of antibiotics we here disclose the first candidate compounds of this novel family of antibiotics with potential for use as frontline treatment for multidrugresistant gramnegative bacterial infectionsdue to antimicrobial resistance amr a resurgence in the use of polymyxin antibiotics has occurred over the last decade despite the well characterised and doselimiting nephrotoxicity associated with these compounds though designated as lastresort antibiotics due to these side effects the ongoing rise of amr is forcing clinicians to rely on unsafe antibiotics such as the polymyxins increased polymyxin use results in risks for patients and pressure on healthcare systemsour novel semisynthetic polymyxins have bestinclass potential given their significantly improved safety profile and offer a superior alternative to current lastresort antigramnegative antibiotics succinctly the next generation polymyxins we have developed offer key advantages over current lastresort antibiotics i reduced nephrotoxic side effects ii effectiveness against multiresistant strains with negligible resistance induction and iii ability to be produced at low cost moreover our robust semisynthetic approach will allow us to generate additional analogues in the futurein nova we will explore the technical and commercial potential of our next generation polymyxins specifically we will validate the first candidate compounds and perform preliminary preclinical toxicity studies in vivo in parallel we will evaluate the commercial feasibility of the next generation polymyxins this entails analysing the market and existing and emerging competitors as well as the ip position and strategy by the end of the project we will consolidate the project outcomes in an investorready business plan
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spatiotemporal control of singlet oxygen release from supramolecular hydrogels to improve cancer therapy
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this research aims to develop novel supramolecular hydrogels and study their application as singlet oxygen 1o2 carriers in medicine 1o2 generated invivo through photochemistry has been used to treat a variety of ailments including bacterial infections acne and several types of cancer though promising this approach suffers from drawbacks such as diminished effectiveness in hypoxic conditions both native and induced and lack of control over the total concentration and dosage of active 1o2 recently endoperoxides epo have been identified as a potential solution for those as they are selfcontained sources of 1o2 produced exsitu however they still do not allow for precise spatiotemporal control of 1o2 release which is desirable to maximize for effectiveness of the treatment grafting epos on solid supports has been explored as a solution but the stateoftheart materials rely on complicated supports with low epo loadings and thermal release mechanisms herein we propose a new strategy for spatiotemporal control of 1o2 through the unprecedented use of hydrogels as epo carriers hydrogels offer an easy to control and stable but not persistent matrix in which the main component is water the otho oxotriphenylhexanoate hydrogels enjoy unparalleled modularity due to their highly robust and selective multicomponent onepot synthesis thus we will synthesize a range of othos containing epo units and perform detailed studies by rheology solidstate nmr smallangle xray and neutron scattering and electron microscopy to understand the properties and behavior of the resulting hydrogels the biocompatibility and cytotoxic profile of the materials will be investigated against yeast cells expressing human disease markers this will pave the way for a new breed of supramolecular pharmacology materials for 1o2 therapy against cancer
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circularity and remanufacturingenabling digital twins
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the credit project will address current challenges in circular remanufacturing by adopting a humancentred innovation approach focusing on the digitalisation of assets a creating multilayered digital twins b and developing an opensourcebased distributed ict platform c allowing seamless data management and complex dt implementation additionally a range of remanufacturingenabling digital services d including aibased decision support systems dltbased traceability and quality control predictive maintenance and general support tools for remanufacturing operations such as augmented reality will be integrated alongside these technologies and tools a comprehensive upskilling and education methodology e will be developed to ensure the appropriate level of maturity at the factory site five diverse business cases in the white goods telecommunications aerospace and automotive sectors have been designed based on their relevance and potential for broad impact these use cases will be cocreated with stakeholders in line with the social innovation methodology to ensure that the specific objectives and technologies are aligned with end users needs by providing an operational environment these use cases will serve as the foundation for achieving the final trl7 and demonstrating the platforms adaptability and potential for deployment in various industrial sectors this will be consolidated through a scaled replicability study the projects farreaching impact will touch a wide set of target groups leading to a more sustainable efficient and socially responsible future for the manufacturing industry credit will generate economic benefits such as increased efficiency reduced production costs and enhanced competitiveness while addressing environmental concerns by reducing waste lowering carbon emissions and minimizing raw material consumption in line with the eus green manufacturing and sustainability targets
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beyond the current improving european flowing waters in an era of global change
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beyond will train the next generation of water professionals who will deliver scientific and technological innovation acrossdisciplines institutions and countries needed to solve european water quality problems in an era of global change in the last decade someimprovement in understanding of water pollution has been achieved but there are still significant knowledge gaps especially in thecontext of climate change and emerging contaminants coupled with a lack of systems approach and operational tools required bywater management to address water quality pressures we need to better target heterogeneity in the landwater continuumaccounting for recipientspecific sensitivity to pollution pressures and the spatial and temporal variation in sources pathways andimpacts on stream ecology and ecosystem services now and under future climatic conditions beyond will equip researchers withcritical technical and communication skills needed to provide evidencebased management of landscapes and river networks undercurrent and future conditions they will gain expertise in interdisciplinary catchment science novel highresolution water qualitysensors and models gain access to cuttingedge water quality instrumentation in experimental catchments in europe and throughsecondments to smes and skills in citizen science beyond researchers will become leaders in innovation and knowledge exchangeneeded to achieve water quality improvements through effective interactions with public and private stakeholders duringsecondments and short visits
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accelerate sustainable enabling of oxygen evolution reaction catalyst for water electrolysis
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large scale synthesis of efficient durable and environmentally friendly electrocatalysts is key for commercialization of proton exchange membrane water electrolysis pemwe which is a vital route for renewable h2 production stateoftheart pemwe is limited by the high price of the electrocatalysts which are composed of ir pt and ru 40 of fabrication costs of pemwe against this background the project able oer aims to develop characterize and electrochemically evaluate lowcost and upscale supported electrocatalysts from commercial and recycled precursors using microwave continuous flow synthesis mwcfs the specific objectives of able oer are to provide proofofconcepts on i synthesis of active and robust supportedoer catalyst which reduces ir loading by 80 at equivalent activity ii incorporation of abundant nano ceramics as support material and secondary pgms for oer catalyst to reduce material cost by 70 iii an upscalable continuous oer catalyst synthesis process which lowers the production cost by 50 the novel catalyst structure and the associated synthesis process will accelerate technological advancement and societal adoption of the pemwe technology my experience in inorganic materials and electrochemistry combined with the expertise of the host group in electrocatalysis for water splitting and recycling will synergistically contribute to achieving the ambitious aims of this project which will be implemented at the university of southern denmark i will learn new techniques in upscale production of catalysts mature my skills as an independent researcher and increase my network to nurture international collaborations the results of this project have the potential to greatly reduce the cost of h2 generated from renewable sources and thus transform the european and global energy sector
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a perturbative approach to model retinal processing of natural scenes
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a major goal of sensory neuroscience is to understand how sensory neurons process natural scenes models built from the responses of sensory neurons to simple stimuli do not generalize to predict how complex natural scene are processed even as early as in the retina this issue is not solved deep network models have been proposed to predict the responses of visual neurons to natural stimuli however they are still far from being a realistic model of the visual system first the sensitivity to perturbations of the stimulus can thus be very different for a deep network model and for our visual system second it is not clear how the model components can be related to actual mechanisms in the brain our purpose is to understand how the retina processes natural scenes we will follow an interdisciplinary approach where we will build realistic deep network models of retinal processing and test them in experiments we will develop deep network models that can predict ganglion cell responses to natural stimuli and map the components of these models to specific cell types in the retinal network our project is original because it will use two novel methods that will be key to achieve our goal the first one is a novel approach to characterize retinal function where we will probe the selectivity of the retina to perturbations of natural stimuli the second one is a novel tool based on 2photon holographic stimulation to decompose the retinal circuit they are tailored to address the specific issues of deep networks each ganglion cell has a receptive field center the region of visual space whose stimulation evokes the strongest responses our project is divided in three parts we will first understand how natural images are integrated inside the receptive field center we will then ask how stimulation outside the receptive field center affects ganglion cell processing of natural images finally we will focus on motion processing during natural scene stimulation
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virtual reality emotion training tool
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the erc starting grant project copan 804582 is an innovative interdisciplinary crossboundary project in the project we study the function underlying neurophysiological mechanisms development and evolution of emotional expressions which has shown us that emotions play a pivotal role in daily life in humans and great apes alike we also show that emotional expressions in real life are more complex than the acted expressions used in emotion research or applications i here propose to build on the fundamental knowledge and develop a virtual reality training tool targeting the broader public and clinical populations
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coherent spintronic networks for neuromorphic computing
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neuromorphic computing uses networks of artificial neurons highly interconnected by artificial synapses to perform vast data processing tasks with unmatched efficiency as needed for instance for pattern recognition or autonomous driving tasks the synaptic connections play a paramount role to create better hardware realizations of these networks however it is very complex to realize large interconnectivity by electronic circuitry cospin overcomes this connectivity constraint by using the eigenexcitations of the magnetic system the spin waves to connect stateoftheart artificial neurons based on spintronic autooscillators cospins main goal is to create and experimentally validate innovative physical building blocks for a novel nanoscaled allspintronic network structure which incorporates all necessary properties for neuromorphic computing including high nonlinearity interconnectivity and reprogrammability by design cospin works at the boundary between oscillatorbased computing and wavebased computing it uses interference frequencymultiplexing and timemodulation techniques as well as spinwave amplification to significantly increase the connectivity between neurons reprogramming of the network is implemented by a direct physical link to magnetic memory solutions as well as by reconfiguring spinwave circuits by using coherent wave interference and nonlinear wave interaction cospin paves the way for novel coupling phenomena for complex artificial neural networks far beyond the stateoftheart of current hardware realizations using cuttingedge micromagnetic simulations enhanced by inverse design methods the artificial networks will be designed and tested prior to their nanofabrication experimental investigations will be mainly carried out using microfocus brillouin light scattering this allows for local investigation of the individual neurons and synapses and significantly simplifies the interpretation of the network dynamics
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tracing the flux of cosmic dust arriving to earth during the phanerozoic
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for the last 45 billion years extraterrestrial et materials have continuously bombarded the earth today the solar system debris that reaches the earths surface is dominated by particles less than 2 mm in size termed micrometeorites mms until recently the established misconception was that these mms did not survive geological timescales limiting reconstructions of the dust flux through time that are currently based on finding rare relict mineral phases or applying geochemical tools eg ir contents 3he isotope ratios following a successful proofofconcept study on a late devonian section flux proposes first to extract fossil mms from selected stratigraphic intervals across the phanerozoic to document their characteristics and origin and second to use them as a novel highresolution proxy to better understand the dynamical interactions between the solar system and earth as such fossil mms may serve as an alternative new source of information on solar system processes complementary to classic meteorites by combining expertise in meteoritics geochemistry and chemostratigraphy flux addresses the following questions 1 how did the flux of cosmic dust evolve during the phanerozoic 2 can stratigraphic intervals marked by a dramatic increase in the mass of cosmic dust accreting to the earth be identified 3 do increased et flux events reflect asteroid familyforming events in the asteroid belt between mars and jupiter and are they influenced by changes in the shape of earths orbit 4 can oxidized ironrich mms be used to reconstruct the gross primary productivity or atmospheric co2 levels of the deep past 5 did et flux fluctuations affect the global earth environment for example through ocean fertilization ultimately flux will better position the earth in the context of a dynamic solar system and constrain the causes and consequences of the variations in the flux of cosmic dust to earth
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society and culture climate change and environmental challenges health artificial intelligence doc
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schadoc stemmed of regional actors will to attract promising earlystage researchers esr to the southeast region of france by offering them an interdisciplinary intersectoral and international training program of excellence schadoc is an essential buildingblock in the larger transformation strategy of amus graduate education it aims to recruit 40 esrs for 36month thesis projects two calls for candidates will be launched during the first 2 years of the program which will be spread over five years applicants will be selected through a rigorous transparent open and meritbased selection process involving various independent national and international experts the selection process offers the possibility to grant bottomup thesis projects proposed by the esr as well as topdown projects proposed to the supervisors esrs will follow a training program both on research skills and on nonresearch oriented transferable skills they will perform secondments both with a socioeconomic and cultural partner and with an international partner civis alliance will be an asset to implement this international dimension of schadoc this ambitious doctoral training program will improve the employability of the esrs its success will be measured by the excellence of the research projects it will generate in strategic domains for the region the partnerships it will develop with the nonacademic sector and the attraction of a large number of international talented researchers at the aixmarseille site the scientific scope of schadoc covers four thematic crosscutting and interdisciplinary research axes which are in line with the priorities of the sud region societies and culture climate change and environmental challenges health and wellbeing artificial intelligence and its applications
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