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celtic language and identity in northern italy and the alpine region
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the research project cliniar celtic language and identity in northern italy and the alpine region investigates the linguistic and sociolinguistic landscape of celtic northern italy and the alpine region in the iron age the project will be conducted at maynooth university mu ireland under the supervision of the leading authority in celtic linguistics professor david stifter with secondment to universit bordeaux montaigne ubm france under the supervision of dr coline ruiz darasse to receive training in gaulish epigraphy and historical sociolinguistics short visits to repositories in italy will be made for data collection through close linguistic analysis of the cisalpine celtic corpus of inscriptions and the subsequent integration of the data into their archaeological and historical context the project will result in a better understanding of the earliest attested celtic languages in their historical and social dimensions and offer new methodologies to scholars and professionals working in celtic studies fragmentary languages ancient history and digital humanities
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extending the scope of reduced density matrix functional theory for bosons
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the onebody reduced density matrix plays a fundamental role in describing and predicting general quantum features of bosonic systems such as boseeinstein condensation bec or mode entanglement the recently proposed reduced density matrix functional theory for bosonic ground states establishes the existence of a universal functional that recovers quantum correlations exactly so far this novel theoretical framework has been used to study the universal properties of homogeneous becs to prove the existence of the socalled boseeinstein repulsive force which explains quantum depletion in a geometrical fashion or to efficiently compute well known groundstate properties of translationinvariant homogeneous bosonic systems our main purpose in this project is to extend the scope of this reduced density matrix functional theory to systems with broken symmetries heterogeneous mixtures of bosonic systems dipolar gases and bosonic systems at finite temperatures our methodology combines analytical approaches and machine learning implementations in which we have already gained strong expertise we believe that the achievement of these objectives will offer a range of fascinating possibilities just to mention a few any trap potential could be considered and linear response coefficients become easily accessible furthermore in analogy to manybody localization for electrons the influence of disorder and interparticle interactions on becs can be studied in a more direct manner universal properties of dipolar gases and bosonic mixtures in the relevant regimes of supersolidity and droplets can potentially be unveiled
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widows in the growing print industry c 15501700
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the advent of the printing press spurred crucial intellectual economic and social developments in early modern europe widows of master printers could also have played a key role in this especially in the holy roman empire as it was then home to one of the fastestgrowing print industries with a conspicuously high number of women printers yet the exact nature of the industrys growth and womens contribution to it is extremely difficult to reconstruct as a key variable the print runs of editions has remained elusivewidowsprint will break significantly new ground by addressing this deficiency based on a large array of different archival sources the project will record systematically all known print runs to create a diverse and representative dataset for early modern germany thus we can establish which factors determined the size of an edition survey the total output of individual print shops and highlight gender aspects of book production in a second step the project will show how widows pursued economic advantages from powerful institutions such as universities and it will analyse how widows economic agency changed in the 16th and 17th century as book production progressively moved from single workshops to larger family enterprises finally widowsprint will use image recognition software to trace the exchange of printing material this will reveal to what extent widows collaborated with other producers allowing the professional networks of women printers hitherto hidden from view to be reconstructedwidowsprint will radically reappraise the role of widows in the german print industry and analyse how economic developments influenced their rights and their agency concurrently the project will provide a model to estimate the actual size of the output of early modern print shops this will lead to a substantial change in our understanding of the availability of these important commodities when major transformations were taking place in europe
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generalisation into sentence and predicate positions
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generalisations are fundamental to every scientific discipline every cell has a plasma membrane every electron has a negative charge every natural number has a unique successor by means of generalisation we turn a statement about a particular individual into a statement about a class of entities generalisations are essential to valid deductive reasoning they are the building blocks of virtually every scientific theory and therefore essential to understanding explaining and making predictions the most basic and best understood form of generalisation is generalisation over objects eg cells electrons numbers in formal logic this form of generalisation is achieved via firstorder quantifiers ie operators that bind variables in argument position but many theoretical contexts require generalisation into sentence and predicate positions a highlevel form of generalisation where we make a general statement about a class of statements eg mathematical induction laws of logic there are two competing methods for achieving this form of generality ie higherorder logic and selfapplicable theories of truth properties and sets respectively as both methods come with their own ideological and ontological commitments it makes a substantial difference which one is chosen as the framework for formulating our mathematical scientific and philosophical theories some research has been done in this direction but it is still very much in its early stages this research project will significantly advance this foundational project it will provide the first sustained systematic investigation of the two methods from a unified perspective and develop novel formal tools to articulate deductively strong theories due to its foundational character it will have an impact on many disciplines especially the foundations of mathematics logic formal semantics metaphysics philosophy of language and theoretical computer science
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sifting through the 3d genome computational models of homology search in dna repair
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homologydirected repair is an essential evolutionary conserved dna repair pathway that accurately restores genetic information lost due to doublestranded breaks its key step is the homology search where the broken dna end locates its matching sequence typically located on a sister chromatid to use as a repair template despite its significance the biophysical mechanism of this search within the complex environment of vertebrate genomes remains debated emerging hypotheses propose that this search is driven by nucleoprotein filaments comprised of repair proteins bound to the broken dna ends that actively traverse the nuclear space to find and recognize homologous sequences we will explore this mechanism by developing quantitative biophysical models that integrate the latest experimental insights on the 3d architecture of sister chromatids and dynamics of nucleoprotein filaments our specific aims are 1 model the homology search in 3d to understand how broken dna sites navigate the complex nuclear environment and identify homologous sequences on intricately folded vertebrate sister chromatids 2 explore the microscopic mechanisms that drive the largescale motions and efficient homology search by nucleoprotein filaments 3 understand the role of filamentdriven homology search in the pairing of homologous chromosomes during meiosis by integrating these complementary aims we will build a detailed biophysical mechanistic picture of homology search we will calibrate our models against genomic and microscopic datasets and test their predictions in collaborations with several experimental biology groups this modeling will provide mechanistic insights into homology search rigorously test longstanding hypotheses and generate predictions to guide future experiments the proposed research will significantly advance our understanding of this key dna repair process and its potential roles in maintaining genome stability and meiotic recombination
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map and manipulate sleep oscillations to reveal their role in healthy cognitive development
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sleep is essential to all animal life but why are sleep needs greater in young mammals evidence points to a key role in cognitive development sleep correlates with brain immaturity and sleep dysfunctions are frequent comorbidities of neurodevelopment disorders as screens invade their bedrooms children are sleeping less and less and learning disorders are on the rise this is a growing public health concernthere is increasing evidence that poor sleep at critical development stages may facilitate the emergence of neural disorders yet this is only correlative but not causal evidence how does sleep architecture differ in immature brains are specific sleep oscillations needed for neural maturation what type of neural computations do they support can sleep dysfunctions directly contribute to social cognitive or learning impairments these crucial questions are still largely unanswered due to technical limitationsi propose to harness new concepts and tools from diverse fields of research to launch an ambitious program bridging neurodevelopment biology systems neuroscience and sleep research because of our interdisciplinary approach my team is in the unique position to pioneer breakthrough in vivo recordings and optogenetics in rat pups i plan to record and decode neural activity from multiple brain areas while automatically scoring sleep in freely behaving pups this in order to elucidate the computational mechanisms at play during developmental sleepi will combine high density recordings with recent advances in viral molecular and cripsr tools to 1 map and 2 impair sleep or associated oscillatory mechanisms with the aim to reveal their 3 impact on healthy development my ambition is to set the stage for a new line of research in developmental systems neuroscience i propose to study the emergence of neural computations infer their roles across the lifespan and reveal sleep as a prime target for therapeutics in development disorders
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assessdht development and harmonisation of methodologies for assessing digital health technologies in europe
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assessdht will increase the adoption of trustworthy and effective digital health technologies dht across europe enabling a more coherent digital single market for health systems and patients to access dht from all over europe and giving industry a european market we will develop a new assessment framework beyond the existing models capable of uniform hta adoption across europe addressing new assessment challenges in digital therapeutics ai and telehealth our consortium comprises 4 hta bodies the european observatory on health systems and policies 5 academic and not for profit organisations with expertise in eu regulation dht development and assessment methodologies data protection data quality interoperability and cybersecurity patients and health professionals are included through the international diabetes federation and european society of cardiology we include the dht industry through companies with products for us to assess through a formal methodology mimicking actual hta assessments 3 as partners some through an open call and industrywide consultation via digital europe we will engage healthcare payers and ministries through our advisory board we will cocreate our overarching assessment framework with specialised pathways for different categories of dht specified through a novel evidencebased typology we will cater for phased adoption going beyond fast track models like diga complex lifecycles iteratively developed ai consolidated in a comprehensive hta assessment manual plus specific guides in topics like cybersecurity we will develop a sustainable repository containing the assessdht framework pathways and unambiguous criteria a semantically searchable evidence library checklists and tools to support companies with evidence generation evidence of health system value from dht and online communities of practice
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first line randomized study platform to optimize treatment in patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma
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in 2020 there were an estimated 431 288 new cases of kidney cancer renal cell carcinoma rcc globally with 138 611 cases in europe leading to 179 368 deaths worldwide including 54 054 deaths in europe source iarcglobocan to define high priority topics in academic research and launch dedicated trials european rcc academic physicians have gathered into a european initiative the care group systemic therapy for rcc relies on two classes of agents antiangiogenic targeted therapy vascular endothelial growth factor tyrosine kinase inhibitor vegfr tki and immune checkpoint inhibitor ici targeting either pd1pdl1 axis or ctla4 combination therapy is standard of care soc for clear cell rcc in all guidelines with either iciici or icivegfr tki however no headtohead comparison have been performed between the two approaches and patients are treated based on physician decision without clinical or biomarker factors to guide treatment selection pdl1 staining is to date the biomarker that has demonstrated its ability to enrich for overall survival benefit favoring iciici strategy in pdl1 and icivegfr tki in pdl1 patientscare1 pct is a prospective randomize phase iii study in first line setting for patients with metastatic clear cell rcc comparing iciici vs icivegfr tki approaches stratified on pdl1 by local determination primary endpoint is overall survival os the trial will enroll 1250 patients over 3 years across eight european countries that are part of the care consortium study sponsor is gustave roussy institute within the getug network for france cosponsor is developed through main academic networks eg sogug in spain and main institutions across europe eg cancer core europe cce study design has been develop to demonstrate that iciici is superior to icivegfr tki in prolonging os for pdl1 patients and that icivegfr tki is superior to iciici in prolonging os for pdl1 patients care1 pct has been designed and will be conducted with patient advocacy group representatives artur and ikcc input care1 is an academic phase iii study designed to define the optimal combination using a pragmatic routinely implementable biomarker therefore care1 will inform practice and has the potential to change treatment guidelines taken all together care1 is a unique opportunity to build a largescale platform to define new biomarker based therapy guidelines as well as to investigate quality of life patient reported outcome and healtheconomic in front line setting as well as pathological and blood biobank collection for further translational work this action is part of the cancer mission cluster of projects ondiagnosis and treatment
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targeting the polycomb machinery in bap1related pathologies
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bap1related mutations are common genetic lesions of several cancers and neurodevelopmental disorders ndds bap1 is a deubiquitinase that removes the repressive monoubiquitination at histone h2ak119 h2aub1 deposited by the polycomb repressive complex 1 prc1 by associating with several regulatory subunits to form the polycomb repressive deubiquitinase prdub complexbap1 inactivating mutations represent a hallmark in malignant mesothelioma mm for which genetic models proved its oncogenic role mutations further extend to several other cancers also involving other essential prdub regulatory subunits this makes prdub inactivation a major oncogenic event with 40k new diagnosis each year between eu and us for which no precision therapeutic approaches exist the work of my dissectpcg erc project found that the major role of bap1 is to counteract h2aub1 diffusion across the entire chromatin this preserves chromatin plasticity enhancing polycombmediated control of transcriptional identity which is decommissioned when bap1 is inactivated and oncogenic h2aub1 accumulates we also found that diffused h2aub1 is controlled by a specific form of prc1 namely prc135 immediately suggesting a strategy to correct the effects of bap1related mutations indeed we found that specific prc135 loss restored normal h2aub1 levels while compromising mm cells viability demonstrating the therapeutic potential of targeting this nonessential arm of prc1 repressive machineryby building a multidisciplinary team the tbap project aims to develop compounds that can target prc135 in living cells we propose to use prc135 structural data to identify specific binders that can function as warheads for the development of protac degraders this will generate a new class of molecules for the development of therapeutic strategies that can aid oncological patients with bap1related mutations with a further potential application in specific ndd syndromes
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protecting threatened river fish against predation
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freshwater ecosystems are heavily impacted by human activities and climate change overall at least 37 of europes freshwater fishes are threatened at a continental scale and 39 are threatened at the eu level this is one of the highest threat levels of any major taxonomic group dg environment 2011 many species of river fish are in a very poor conservation status and even those that are protected by eg the habitats directive are not regularly monitored and documentation of the population trend and status is often lacking a recent great increase in predation pressure has further increased pressure on river fish even in healthy restored or leastimpacted areas in the eu predation may be the main reason for widespread loss of populations of habitats directive listed grayling thymallus thymallus there is a genuine and widespread concern among managers and stakeholders regarding protection of wild populations of river fish as grayling from unsustainable predation pressure the conflicts involving fish protection and predation have been intense in most member states for decades and despite protective measures including culling birds directive article 9derogations the conflicts have remained intense protectfish aim to investigate the monitoring and protective measures of habitat directivelisted river fish species answering area a of the call we will develop and test protective actions using cormorants phalocorax carbo sinensis and grayling as a case small and large scale field experiments will be conducted to measure the effect of relieving cormorant predation pressure on fish populations we will examine the background for the conflicts by estimating the current population status of cormorants and grayling in eu as well as quantify the culling of cormorants the results of protectfish will directly aid to achievement of eu biodiversity strategy natura 2000 and the wfd as well as improved adaptive nature management on local levels
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polycatechollignin hybrid electrodes for sustainable batteries
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designing safe and sustainable batteries is of great importance for sustainable development of our modern society hereof rechargeable aqueous metalpolymer batteries rampbs that combine inherently sustainable redoxactive polymer rap organic cathodes safe and abundant metal anodes in waterbased electrolytes are identified as promising candidates however to date most of the tested raps are synthetic ones and their commercial exploitation hasnt been accomplished due to high costperformance factor subpol proposal aims to develop sustainable rampbs by hybridizing costoriented biopolymer lignin lig and performanceoriented synthetic raps polycatechols pc into organic cathodes and combining with appropriate metal anodes zn pb etc targeting their performance beyond stateoftheart 150600whkg 150kwh subpol will follow an integrated approach of macromolecular engineeringtailor made pcs biopolymer platformease of lig modification novel electrode fabrication methodslbl of complimentary charged pc and lig polyelectrolytes or polyelectrolyte complexes and device optimization this fellowship will provide er strong technical professional and transferable skills especially with acquisition of biopolymer batteries and scaleup which will complete his practical expertise in synthetic raps their applicability in different batteries the success of subpol depends on material design device fabrication scaleup and all members of this consortium dr patiler supervisors prof crispinlinköping university at host dr marcillaimdea energia secondment dr nilssonligna energy placement in nonacademia have already demonstrated required skills in this regard optimistically subpol will cover some of the priorities of hewp for energetic future of eu and also its multidisciplinary aspect provide a true opportunity to reach his career goal of becoming an independent researcher in either a leading university or rd batteries company
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proton electron and neutron sources for nondestructive testing and investigations and treatment of materials
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the main goal of the pantani project is to complete the design of an innovative laserdriven radiation source suitable for applications in materials science inspection and treatment as well as the development of some of its key components accelerators are exploited to produce particles and radiation needed for applications of high industrial and social relevance like analysis of objects of historical artistic and environmental interest sterilisation of medical instrumentation inspection of cargos and goods largescale diffusion of these applications is prevented by the intrinsic limits of the available particle sources in terms of costs dimensions and flexibility in this frame laserdriven particle sources represent an appealing solution to overcome these limitations they are potentially cheaper and more compact compared to conventional accelerators moreover they can provide several kinds of particles to perform multiple applications with the same source these novel sources are subject to active research but no industrial applications are currently available starting from the results obtained with the erc cog ensure and erc poc inter projects pantani aims to address key aspects never considered before to develop a laserdriven particle source dedicated for the applications 1 the development of an applicationoriented design of the entire acceleration system 2 the identification of commercial laser solutions compatible with the source requirements 3 the production and test of a prototype radiation detector 4 radiation protection assessment of the designed system also from the legislative point of view all these results achieved by exploiting the expertise from both academy politecnico di milano host institution and industry the raylab and sourcelab partners will allow bridging the gap between fundamental research and the development of a realistic multipurpose laserdriven particle source suitable for applications
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multiscale ocean models and information for climate risk assessment and impact mitigation
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moirai named after the three greek goddesses of fate stands as a pioneering project at the intersection of past present and future moirai endeavors to weave a comprehensive understanding of the oceans dynamics and biogeochemical cycles through advanced models integrating historical data current observations and future projections integrated into the frameworks of destination earth de and the european digital twin of the ocean dto key components of the broader digital and green transitions moirai aims to significantly advance our comprehension and mitigation of climaterelated challenges moirai is set to advance the next generation of regional to coastal ocean and biogeochemical climate models in european seas bridging the gaps between operational and regional ocean climate models benchmarked with improved climate modelling and prediction capacities in the estuarialcoastalopen sea continuum the developed models will contribute to the european green deal addressing resilience to climate change both mitigation and adaptation in coastal areas the quality of its coastal models forms the backbone of moirais commitment to delivering reliable outcomes for endusers at its core moirai in conjunction with the establishment of reasshore resilience and adaptation strategies selection hub for ocean risks assessment and endusers feedback aims to create replicable scientific frameworks and pave the way for basinscale services fostering collaborative initiatives across european regional seas designed to be modular and interoperable reasshore will seamlessly integrate with existing and future digital infrastructures for ocean climate and risk services
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development of a complete triple action injectable treatment for osteoarthritis
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osteoarthritis oa is an incurable complex disease affecting an estimated 240 million people globally including 40 million europeans oa is the fastest growing cause of disability due to an aging population and the obesity epidemic and affects more people each year than cancer and heart disease in knee oa progressive degradation of bone and cartilage in the joint results in severe pain and reduced mobility current treatments for knee oa target only one aspect of the disease yet most recent scientific data highlight the need for multimodal therapeutics to treat this complex disease furthermore the limitations of treatments force 80 of patients to rely on strong addictive pain medication through the hydrolieve erc proof of concept grant it was proven that hydrobloc statistically significantly reduced pain sensations in an in vivo pain model these exciting results led dr alison liddy to spinout relevium ltdhydrobloc unique synergistic triple action addresses all aspects of this debilitating disease hydrobloc is the only therapeutic that regenerates the damaged cartilage whilst providing immediate superior pain relief and improving the physical function of the joint through a cushioning lubricant effect preclinical studies have proven that hydrobloc returns the oa joint to 90 of normal nonoa physical functionwith this eic grant relevium is partnering with nui galway to validate the preclinical results in larger animals and preclinically test for other oa indications relevium will compile the clinical trial dossier and develop a business model towards the maturation and transition to commercialisation
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easy to use contactless dualmode ultrasound technology for high accuracy treatment of atrial fibrillation improving outcomes
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our mission is to radically change the landscape of cardiac ablation our products based on proprietary ultrasound technology allow contactless tissue ablation with realtime lesion monitoring bringing healium to the forefront of the cardiac ablation market our team backed by scientific and business advisors includes dr eckhouse chairman leading medical entrepreneur who has founded 20 companies and cumulated 1b in exits ventor for 325m synron and lumenis both ipo 1b ran sela ceo and cofounder 15 years of medical device development and project management dr megel cto and cofounder 25 years in ultrasoundbased medical devices now we are at the toprisk phase of our development journey the transition from preclinical to clinical studies leveraging an ec investment of 1275m we can demonstrate the efficacy and safety of our product establish a manufacturing line and regulatory framework and access the market as a selfsustained company
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establishing exhaled breath aerosol xba sampling for diagnosis and screening of respiratory infections
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respiratory infections resulted in 7 million deaths in 2020 and were responsible for 7 of the last 9 pandemics causing trillions of s in economic losses despite the importance of early detection for individual health and pandemic control flawed sampling methods for respiratory infections limit the impact of highlysensitive molecular diagnostics breathfordxs overall goal is to tackle this problem by establishing exhaled breath aerosol xba as a novel evidencebased sample for respiratory infections in three use cases diagnosis screening and antimicrobial resistance using tuberculosis tb as a model infection the project will leverage innovation in bioaerosol and material science as well as the multidisciplinary including academia industry and ngos consortiums track record of delivering transformative diagnostic innovation more specifically we will optimise an innovative easytouse scalable xba sampling device and compare it to a face mask sampling device coupled with rapid molecular detection in three clinical studies we will evaluate the xba sampling efficiency of these devices using the respiratory aerosol sampling chamber as a benchmark next we will assess performance of the devices for diagnosis of tb and drugresistance among symptomatic patients in a high burden eu country in parallel we will assess the feasibility of multiplexing xba samples for multiple respiratory pathogens ie tb influenza sarscov2 in a screening use case accuracy and feasibility data will be complemented by data on acceptability and usability as well as costeffectiveness and impact modelling to inform the implementation potential of the novel devices across different use cases we envision a world in which a single breath sample coupled with pointofcare molecular diagnostics enables accessible and accurate pathogen and resistance detection of highly transmissible respiratory infections thereby improving both individual and public health
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sustainable onsite and innovative technologies for advanced transport biofuels from mcroalgae
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tthe fuelgae project aims to develop a novel model of advanced liquid fuels alf production from different co2 emissions streams of two industrial sectors biorefinery and energy intensive industries through a microalgae pilot plant integrated into their infrastructure the performance of the selected microalgae strains will be improved by adapting them to each industrial case study the alf production will be addressed developing different technologies i selective production of microalgae to obtain polysaccharides or lipids ii alternative microalgal biomass treatments iii innovative catalytic upgrading systems from biocrude iv online microalgae sensor additionally to the previously innovative technologies fuelgae concept uses modelling techniques integrated into process analytical techniques to develop a global digital twin dtfurthermore the ceconomy of fuelgae approach will be significantly improved through hydrothermal liquefaction and biogas processes the biochar produced will be tested in agricultural uses creating synergies with energy and biocrude generation all technologies will be upscaled to trl5 in the two case study sites the microalgae pilot plant will be transported and validated in the two industrial sites in romania steel plant and spain 2gbioethanol fuelgae technologies will be further evaluated through life cycle assessment lcalcc to confirm their lower environmental impact use of resources or ghg emissions and a first approach of economical sustainability dt will be coupled with lcalcc to provide a global and dynamic assessment of the fuelgae conceptfuelgae will contribute to advancing the european scientific basis and global technological leadership in the area of renewable fuels increase their technology competitiveness and role in transforming the energy system on a fossilfree basis by 2050 in particular in the sectors like aviation and shipping while supporting the eu goals for energy independence
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prehistoric colonial landscapes across the mediterranean
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previous research on palaeolandscapes has overlooked a main driver of landscape change the mobility of human societies when groups move they take with them their technology and ideas but also plants or landuses which merge with native environments and practices to give birth to transported landscapes this can lead to significant and longlasting landscape changes ie deforestation introduction of exotic plants erosion that can be traced back through the use of combined palaeoenvironmental and archaeological techniques however the study of transported landscapes and their environmental impact has only rarely been addressed so far and it is especially needed in mediterranean coastal areas where migratory and colonial processes have had a particularly active role in the modelling of landscapes for millennia across will fill this existing gap in current research by analysing two areas at the two sides of the mediterranean basin abdera thrace and emporion catalonia they account for a long history of prehistoric peopling and have ancient colonial relationships with the foundation of the greek colonies of abdera and of emporion by same cultural group the ionian tribe an innovative approach combining multiproxy palaeoecological analyses pollen nonpollen palynomorphs plant macroremains hightemporal fire reconstructions and landscape archaeology datasets will be applied in both areas to reconstruct changes in vegetation landuses and landscapes following prehistoric migratory processes and colonial settling between the 6th millennia cal bc and the 4th century ad a particular focus will be put in reconstructing landscape changes following graecoroman colonial settling to assess 1 common and diverging trends in landuse and landscape shaping in culturally similar colonial landscapes over long distances and 2 the interaction integration and resilience of autochthonous and colonial practices and landscapes across the mediterranean
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more specific insecticides harnessing knowledge of insect receptors
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pest control is a central component of agriculture however insecticides and agriculture can have an impact on ecosystems regulations have been taken in europe to ban some insecticides based on the possible threat they pose to pollinators there is an urgent unmet need for speciesspecific insecticides that are safe for nontarget organisms in the proposed proofofconcept project we aim at demonstrating that peptides specifically designed against neurotransmitter receptors can be potent at pest species without affecting beneficial species during the previous ercstg project we developed tools to obtain pure mammalian neurotransmitter receptors we have adapted those tools for insect receptors which are the most important insecticide targets we here propose to use insect receptors for the selection of speciesspecific peptides the peptide libraries will be designed by computationalguided mutagenesis and screened by yeast display within the project we aim to secure a solid ip position on the technology platform we will build in order to maximise the likelihood of success for a commercial endeavour we will explore the market opportunity and regulatory pathway for subsequent product development in order to define a business model and implement early commercialisation steps
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towards the prevention of rebound effects within complex sociotechnical systems
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societys most wellintended efforts to solve sustainability challenges have not yet achieved the expected gains due to rebound effects which are unintended consequences of interventions that arise due to induced changes in system behaviour rebound effects are widely acknowledged but fundamental scientific gaps hamper their prevention reboundless aims to develop the reboundless design theory a paradigm shift in design science that will establish the scientific knowledge for preventing rebound effects by explaining systemic rebound effect mechanisms triggered by sustainable design strategies modelling and simulating the magnitude of rebound effects arising from design decisions enabling the design of resilient systems by means of reboundless design strategiesthe reboundless design theory will provide novel methodologies simulation models and strategies for the design of reboundless solutions ie products productservicesystems and sociotechnical systems that are resilient to rebound effectsbuilding on the strong foundation of systems theory reboundless is uniquely positioned to bridge the interdisciplinary gap in the interplay of sustainable design and rebound effects qualitative and quantitative models engineering and social sciences theory and practice the reboundless design theory will be the starting point of a prominent research field with extensive applicability within and beyond sustainable design eg sustainability assessment sustainability transitions policymakingnever before has there been a stronger global focus on solving the pressing sustainability challenges but the expected positive societal impact will not be achieved unless rebound effects are prevented building on my 15year trackrecord on sustainable design theory and practice reboundless will give me the opportunity to enable the urgently needed shift towards the design of sustainable and resilient systems
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the everyday politics of famine
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famines are becoming more frequent and deadly with 250000 people experiencing famine in 2022 and 35 million people being on the edge of famine for decades there has been a scholarly consensus that famine is the result of political failure or design and never solely the result of natural disasters however a political culture that makes famine politically unconscionable and that ends famine has not emerged to understand why famines persist we need to deepen our understanding of famine politics so far scholarship on the politics of famine has focus on national and international institutions and the instrumental use of famine by actors and institutions my research will produce a groundbreaking shift in the science of famine politics by focusing on the everyday politics of famine in communities where it occurs i am interested in how discourses and the regime of truth about famine disperse throughout the social body in foucaults words in particular i am interested in how new deadly famines come to be normalised preventing political rupture plus i am interested in how these discourses can shift blame for famine suffering away from governments warring parties and actors in global economies and instead place blame on natural causes and the families of those who suffer and die to achieve this i will conduct an ethnographicallyinformed comparative study across four sites in south sudan and in somalia initial ethnographic insights have made me structure the research around four crosscasestudy research strands histories and musical memories of past famine communitynarratives that enforce social networks burial and posthumous practices and media and social medias role in antifamine politics this ambitious project is feasible because of my previous experience and networks and because i have carefully built the capacity and track record of a team somali and south sudanese dominated research team
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groundwater flow controls on critical zone thermal regime
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the foundations of modern hydrogeology have been built within the paradigm of quasiequilibrium temperature distribution within groundwater systems the presumed thermal stability of groundwater is vitally important for many groundwater and stream ecosystems which cannot tolerate a wide temperature range and face growing threats from climate and landuse changes yet recent results evidenced the great impact of ongoing atmospheric warming on shallow groundwater temperatures groundwater flow is expected to strongly affect groundwater and stream warming trends a major issue is that existing modeling frameworks have largely sidestepped 1 the complexities associated with the multiscale heterogeneity in groundwater flow andor 2 the transient nature of groundwater fluxes and surface temperature furthermore direct field evidences of the impact of climate and anthropogenic forcings on the temperature distribution are still rare the concreter will therefore assess the role of groundwater dynamics in shaping the thermal regime of the critical zone the shallow subsurface where the water element energy and biological cycles interact the focus on the interaction of subsurface heterogeneity with heat transport processes will require the development of original numerical models wp1 and novel temperature imaging laboratory experiments wp2 wp3 will bring critical in situ data to constrain these newly developed models wp4 will further develop advanced numerical models to separate the effects of fluid flow and of surface warming with the help of the developed numerical approaches wp5 will study the evolution of temperature at field sites characterized in wp3 chosen to isolate the role of different forcings climatic anthropogenic on critical zone thermal regime concreter will provide new physical frameworks and modelling tools for multiscale heat transport processes in the critical zone with the potential to redefine their quantitative understanding
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mechanisms of gasdriven mineral weathering in a changing climate
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chemical reactions in the unsaturated zone in earths shallow subsurface where pores are filled with a mixture of fluid and gas support life on our planet and have a profound influence on the global carbon cycle and climate gasdriven mineral weathering reactions not only provide nutrients essential to life but serve to regulate atmospheric co2 concentrations and climate and are facilitated in the unsaturated zone where reactive gases like co2 and o2 are readily transported earths climate has experienced major fluctuations over its history and is currently changing rapidly due to human activities climate change impacts the size and water content of the unsaturated zone and therefore the rates of mineral weathering at present prediction of the impacts of changes in water saturation co2 concentration and temperature on mineral weathering rates is hindered by an incomplete understanding of the controls on mineral weathering in the unsaturated zone dryco2 will elucidate the physical and chemical controls on gasdriven mineral weathering in the unsaturated zone to evaluate climate evolution over earths history to optimize engineered co2 removal for climate change mitigation and to forecast the impact of future anthropogenic climate change on the mineral weathering reactions that store co2 and release nutrients dryco2 will comprise five work packages and combines experimental studies at multiple scales in the laboratory and field analysis of key field samples and multiscale reactive transport modelling this multiscale multitool approach will allow dryco2 to quantify the effects of co2 concentration and changes in water availability on mineral weathering reactions from the mineral surface to the global scale in a comprehensive fashion
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machine learning for structural health monitoring of cultural heritage
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europe is home to about 400 unesco world heritage sites and has a growing tourism industry employing many people directly and indirectly hence it is of concern to ensure the cultural heritage ch buildings are inspected properly and correct damage diagnosis is performed incorrect damage diagnosis will lead to loss of cultural value and may lead to the closing of the monument thus affecting society in general and the livelihood of people associated with it the proposed mlcult project is motivated by the need to perform damage diagnosis of ch using imagebased machine learning ml techniques thus helping to preserve them the popularity of ml approaches and deep learning algorithms has increased considerably over the last two decades computervisionbased damage detection employing convolutional neural networks will be integrated with laser scan data nondestructive testing and other condition assessment data to provide a better estimate of existing areas of damage the model will be trained from the database of earthquakedamaged ch collected by the host institutions uminho and polimi several typologies of damage indicators will be identified and quantified due to weathering moisture ingress algae growth and efflorescence the project will be supervised by prof lourenço at the university of minho portugal who is an international expert on ch and prof luigi barazzetti at politecnico di milano italy whose has expertise in computervision drone and imagebased damage detection finally a prototype inspection system first of its kind in ch field using dronesbased realtime damage detection will be demonstrated specifically for ch damage pathologies the proposed method can help in identifying structural anomalies in ch that must be urgently repaired and thus can be used in highquality civil infrastructure monitoring systems this method would also enable fast screening of ch buildings after a disaster such as an earthquake
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social justice or cancel culture genderjust language and academic freedom in germany
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the research project focuses on one specific field of the current culture wars in europe what is framed as social justice by one side and cancel culture or woke by the other the phenomenon will be studied in germany where these debates are particularly salient in politics and public discourse and through two issues that occupy a central role in the controversies 1 gender inclusive or as termed in germany genderjust language and 2 academic freedom the projects main goal is to provide an account of the progressive side in the culture wars and by that to significantly contribute to better understanding a key conflict within contemporary politics and develop a democratic theory thereof these debates have three specificities first they do not neatly map onto the culturally progressiveconservative cleavage not only the conservative but the culturally progressive side is divided too postmodern identity politics or intersectional left finding a suitable name is already part of the controversy marxist left universalist or classical liberals various feminist strands are in fierce debates about the related issues among themselves not with the right second the two debates are emblematic of ongoing culture warstruggles hence studying them affords a better understanding of major developments in the politics of recognition culture and language in the past decade third academics play a major role in shaping public discourse and policies not only through providing arguments for social movements and institutionalized politics but also by intervening in the debates themselves and with academia itself being a central site of conflict through publicly discussing language use and invitation policies academia is carrying out a discussion of public relevance about what is socially acceptable and desirable
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reliability assessment of safety systems
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the appropriate management of major industrial risks requires the employment of advanced safety systems that can ensure an acceptable protection level for the workers the surrounding population and the environment such an employment is practically an entire process that follows the lifecycle of those systems to ensure not only their ability to perform their intended functions but also to reduce the side effects of their integration into the system which can be serious on many levels including safety itself the main objectives of this project are1 develop an adequate framework to handle the uncertainty involved in the quantification of the main measures in the reliability assessment of safety systems with the proposition of a practical implementation tool that facilitates its application by the associated engineers2 specify the nature of the systematic failures and their relationships with random failures and extract the contribution of the human and organizational factors with an analysis of the possible differences between the different involved characteristics 3 propose and validate quantitative systematic safety integrity indicators that can be used in parallel and in consistency with those classical randomside measures to allocate the safety requirements and to assess the performance of the safety systems in a balanced manner 4 propose a coherent subphase in the overall safety lifecycle which concerns the quantitative analysis aspects using a combination of the results of those treated points in addition to some other currently accepted practices in reliability assessments of safety systems the main results and their places in the existing lifecycle models and safety management frameworks will be arranged as a subphase of the safety lifecycle in particular those associated with the quantitative treatment of uncertainty and systematic failures aiming to contribute in enhancing assessment of the reliability of safety systems
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overcoming resistance to anticancer drugs by blocking mutationprone dna polymerases and the sos response
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background a large fraction of cancer patients die because their tumors initially respond to drugs but later they evolve tolerance thus resistance to diverse drugs along with the soaring costs of new treatments are emerging as major societal issues of the 2020s herein we explore one of the most distressful examples tolerance of lung cancer to egfrspecific tyrosine kinase inhibitors tkis working hypothesis in similarity to bacteria exposed to antibiotics when cancer cells are exposed to tkis they enlist sos responses which activate endogenous mutators hence we will combine the relatively effective but mutagenic tkis with drugs that disarm the mutators this scheme will be applied on models of egfr lung cancer a disease that repeatedly evolves mutations and resistance but eventually leaves millions of patients with no treatment choices specific aims our initial studies identified one triad of the sos system a sensor of cell death gas6 a mediator axl gas6 receptor and a mutator lowfidelity dna polymerases remarkably blocking axl using an antibody irreversibly prevented relapses when combined with egfr inhibitors along with establishing this triad we will employ transcriptomics protetomics and metabolomics to resolve parallel mutators and sensors likewise we will explore alternative ways to block resistance for example by directly targeting dna polymerases myc and purine metabolism aiming at strategies that minimize sos enlisting we will explore the premise of boosting immune destruction of cancer cellssignificance according to the current status quo nextgeneration inhibitors are being applied when resistance emerges however this scheme does not cure only buys time resistsos offers an alternative that might eradicate resistance and cure disease models following treatments that are based on deep understanding and blocking the mutagenic sos response
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untying the knot of creep and fatigue behaviour of uhpc for sustainable design of infrastructures enabling the carbon neutrality transition
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concrete as the most widely used construction material is responsible for about 7 of global energyrelated co2 emissions addressing this environmental challenge within the construction sector necessitates urgent development and adoption of multibeneficial materials characterized by low carbon emissions superior durability and excellent mechanical properties ultrahighperformance concrete uhpc emerges as such a material offering a 26 reduction in carbon emissions and a 24 cost advantage according to comparative lca and lcc analysis on benchmark structures uhpc is the ideal candidate material for broad application particularly in construction of new and retrofitting existing aging infrastructure subjected to cyclic and sustained actions including bridges tunnel linings wind turbine towers roads and aircraft runwayshowever the lack of knowledge regarding uhpcs longterm performance including creep and fatigue behaviour hinders its widespread use in infrastructure projects the objective of this project is to unlock this critical knowledge gap and develop structural design guidelines aimed at driving the construction sectors transition towards carbon neutrality through the use of highperformance materials that enable us to build better for longer and employing lower material volumes which all imply reduced consumption of raw resources and reduced environmental impacts in the short and long term employing multiscale experimental tests multiphysics and mesoscale numerical methods the project aims to comprehensively characterize and predict uhpcs response to creep and fatigue and the creepfatigue coupled effect cyclic creepincreeguings breakthrough will fill the current knowledge gaps in understanding uhpcs longterm performance this initiative will enhance europes competitiveness in constructing ecofriendly resilient and durable infrastructure by providing practical design tools to expedite their widespread adoption
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ethical and privacypreserving big data platform for supporting criminal investigations
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this proposal aims to develop an innovative and privacypreserving decisionsupport system for european law enforcement authorities leveraging advanced big data and ai technologies to effectively combat crimes and terrorism the proposed system integrates federated learning user and entity behavior analytics ueba and other big data and ai techniques to monitor social network data deep and shallow web information and police databases in a secure collaborative privacyaware and ethical mannerthe primary objective is to help law enforcement authorities leas fighting cybercrime and terrorism by identifying key communities and users involved in activities such as hate speech child sexual abuse terrorism or drug trafficking and to use this information to better allocate police resources preserve will leverage federated learning a decentralised machine learning approach that allows model training on distributed data sources while preserving data privacy by collaborating with multiple leas across europe preserve will collectively combine social network data deep and shallow web information and police databases to analyse large amounts of spatial and temporal data related to criminal activities to identify patterns and correlations to provide better policeresource management on critical areas
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gate2brain towards sme designation and paediatric investigational plan
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gate2brain g2b is a biotech company focused on the development of therapeutics that efficiently cross biological barriers such as the bloodbrain barrier bbb using this radically innovative peptidebased patented technology platform g2b has developed a novel therapy g2b002 for pediatric brain tumors such as diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma dipg and glioblastoma currently without a cure or poor prognosis small and mediumsize enterprises smes represent 99 of all business in the eu g2b will apply to obtain sme designation to have access to finance and eu support programs which include research competitiveness and innovation funding another potential benefit that g2b could obtain is the fewer requirements or reduced fees for eu administrative compliance g2b is mainly focused on pediatric brain cancer a rare but mostly lethal central nervous system disease after obtaining sme designation g2b will develop the paediatric investigational plan pip included in the eu paediatric regulation thus g2b expects also to benefit from i reduction of registration taxes ii tax deductions iii access to financial support iv assistance in the drafting of clinical trial protocols v ease of access to procedures to accelerate marketing in europe vi right to marketing exclusivity for 10 years in europe and vii 6month extension patent protection initiative of medicines for childrenthe health economics market access outcomes strategy that g2b will also perform will include a willingnesstopay and productmarket fit analysis between others the final report will help to estimate the economic value of the company considering relevant alternatives for both the healthcare system and pharmaceutical industrythe rd strategy of g2b is focused on the therapeutic validation of its platform to demonstrate its safety and efficacy with sme designation and pip g2b will be able to successfully initiate first in human clinical trials in pediatric population
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conceptualising intercultural mediation in the greekroman antiquity a multidisciplinary approach
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intercultural mediation is a social practice that creates bonds between individuals or groups from different cultural background through the agency of a third party the agent or mediator can be either an individual or a group of people eg an ambassador a translator a salesman immigrants pilgrims tourists and so on whose activity often unintentionally reinforces international relationships and fosters social cohesion especially for what concerns culturally distant andor hostile groups the practice exists from ancient times prompt by various political and economic factors and the understanding how and why it occurred and why it succeeded or failed in the past can greatly impact the studies related to intercultural exchange by amplifying our understanding of social mechanisms that may promote cultural tolerance and manage conflicts however current studies related to multicultural coexistence overlook this issue and the research is further impeded by the lack of a universal theory on mediation or a valid methodology of its study the cima project aims to fill this gap by studying a reallife phenomenon in a historical perspective in order to enable the use of past sociocultural experiences to address current social issues namely cima will examine a series of case studies that emphasize the activity of the ancient greeks as diplomatic mediators trading agents andor transmitters of concepts and ideas between foreign communities statestribes and will develop an adaptable model of analysis of this phenomenon applicable in various disciplines and fields inthis manner the project will transcend the conventional boundaries between disciplines and open new interdisciplinary directions for future research the outputs of the project will be disseminated both in written form in journals conference proceedings and social media and as oral presentations targeting researchers students and the general public
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multiattribute values ontologies to improve built heritage information assessment in clustered territories
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moebhios multiattribute values ontologies to improve built heritage information assessment in clustered territories aim is to develop an innovative valuebased decisionmaking approach on historical built heritage on the crossborder contexts of clustered territories the improvement of information systems for territorial geomapping with multiattributes values from social sciences fields will be pursued developing advanced information ontologies specifically suited for landscape and built heritagethe project is tested on the pilot case study of historical built heritage in palestine assuming a key example of complex heritage ecosystem at the territorial scale envying societal and landscape developing programs similar to other contexts at european bordersto achieve the goal the research project provides a path of theoretical studies onfield direct training and practical activities social surveys technical dialogue sessions for the collection of data concepts and logical structures referring to 4 main macroareas concerning built heritage analysis social archaeological economic and cultural fields the researcher will participate to a creative research training program across europe and middle east in contact with excellent research laboratories and chairs in cultural heritage social palestine and economic germany fields the researcher will reintegrate the advanced social sciences skills to architectural and built heritage research considering the horizon of digital practices of documentation and 3d modelling experimented at the beneficiary sending institution italy the scientific quality of resulting information ontologies for historical built heritage is envisaged by development agencies for territorial governance and the strengthen of local communities in third countries fostering the establishment of goodpractices and standard protocols on dynamic representation and monitoring of tangible heritage through eu and above
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synergizing enhanced radiotherapy with tumorassociated macrophagestargeted immunotherapy in glioblastoma with multimodal therapeutic nanoparticles
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in glioblastoma gbm intrinsic and environmental factors are limiting the efficacy of radiation therapy rt and immunotherapy these factors include intrinsic cancer cells resistance hypoxia and the presence of immunosuppressive cells such as tumorassociated macrophages tamsconsidering these current limitations for rt efficacy and the specific deleterious role of tams in gbm i designed an original therapeutic strategy combining enhanced rt and tams reprogramming with tolllike receptors tlrs agonists to synergize direct cytotoxicity to tumors cells at low radiation doses with immunotherapy for both local and recurrent tumor rejection for this i will use relevant radiosensitizing moieties for gbm high z atoms which can efficiently absorb scatter and emit radiation energy and catalase an enzyme capable of converting h2o2 to oxygen in the tumor microenvironment tme it will be simultaneously applied with the combination of the tlrs agonists polyic and resiquimod which will be used to reeducate tams and prepare the tme to a strong antitumoral immune response the selected molecules will be incorporated in a new multimodal therapeutic nanoparticle mtnp based on a nanosized zeolite structure allowing to combine the two approaches in a unique particlethe mtnps will be tested in vitro and in vivo in murine model of gbm and patientderived samples to verify their effectiveness in enhancing rt and reeducating tams and their effect on tumor growth the present multidisciplinary research program aims at supporting greater progress in the treatment of brain tumors and ultimately leading to improved outcomes for cancer patients
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digital technologies acting as a gatekeeper to information and data flows
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tango will establish a stronger crosssector data sharing in a citizencentric secure and trustworthy manner by developing innovative solutions while addressing environmental degradation and climate change challenges the overall outcome is a novel platform exhibiting the following capabilities userfriendly secure trustworthy compliant fair transparent accountable and environmentally sustainable data management having at its core technology components for distributed privacy preserving and environmentally sustainable data collection processing analysis sharing and storage this platform will promote trustworthy and digitally enabled interactions across society for people as well as for businesses tango will leverage the power of emerging digital technologies to strengthen the privacy for citizens and privatepublic organisations reduce costs and improve productivity it will unlock the innovation potential of digital technologies for decentralised privacypreserving applications while making accessible and demonstrating this potential within the gaiax and eosc ecosystem with 37 key partners from 13 countries tango is uniquely positioned to provide a high impact solution within the transport ecommerce finance public administration tourism and industrial domains supporting numerous beneficiaries across europethrough the provision of tango technologies a trustworthy environment will be designed acting as a gatekeeper to information and data flows citizens and publicprivate organisations will be empowered to act and interact providing data both online and offline tango will focus its activities on 3 main pillars i the deployment of trustworthy accountable and privacypreserving datasharing technologies and platforms ii the creation of data governance models and frameworks iii the improvement of data availability quality and interoperability both in domainspecific settings and across sectors
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earlystage organocatalysis
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organocatalysis has drastically advanced stereoselective chemical synthesis from an underdeveloped niche area it has become the most frequently applied approach to asymmetric synthesis organocatalysis is also developing into a technology which can be used to make pharmaceuticals scents and other fine chemicals however the early stages of industrial chemistry the upgrading of hydrocarbonbased alkenes arenes and alkanes are still largely dominated by heterogeneous and transition metal catalysts here we will address the question if a selective earlystage organocatalysis eso can be developed that directly delivers highvalue substances from abundantly available hydrocarbon feedstock chemicals while significantly saving energy and other resources during the last few years we have developed confined organic acids as a new catalyst class that features enzyme and zeoliteinspired active sites with welldefined pockets for selective substrate recognition and catalysis these catalysts offer a widely tunable reactivity range reaching extreme levels with turnover numbers exceeding 106 in challenging asymmetric carboncarbon bond forming reactions and approaching magic acid reactivity toward the activation of olefins we now aim to take confined acid catalysis to another level by designing new even more reactive acids that enable the utilization and valorization of steamcrackerbased hydrocarbons in selective organocatalysis specifically we propose three aims 1 developing asymmetric olefin hydrofunctionalizations including hydrations and hydroarylations 2 an early stage functionalization of simple arenes such as benzene and toluene via highly stereoselective and regioselective electrophilic aromatic substitution reactions and as the ultimate test of extreme reactivity 3 we propose organocatalytic asymmetric reactions of alkanes the allunderlying goal will be the design and development of organocatalysts of the next generation
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making migration and migration policy decisions amidst societal transformations
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paces offers a groundbreaking approach to studying and understanding peoples decisions to migrate and explores how this knowledge can better inform migration policies paces focuses on two parallel research components the factors shaping migration decisionmaking and the mechanisms underpinning migration policies synthesizing theoretical and empirical knowledge from a broad array of academic disciplines and methodological paradigms the project systematically investigates the interactions between migration decisions migration policies and broader social transformation as manifested in interconnected processes of economic political demographic technological and cultural change based on a theoretical synthesis and qualitative and quantitative data collected in algeria ethiopia italy tunisia niger slovakia and spain paces will elaborate a heuristic model that identifies different constellations of conditions that shape decisions to stay and migrate at different stages of individual life trajectories and migrant journeys in addition by adopting a theories of change approach paces will systematically investigate identify and track the assumptions on migration decisions used by policymakers to formulate policy designs and objectives by exploring the evolution of eu and national policies towards labour and family migration paces investigates the extent to which current migration policies are evidencebased and areas where policies will benefit from valuable insights provided by migration decisionmaking research by doing so paces seeks to contribute to elaborating more effective models of eu migration governance that also account for the uncertainties of future social transformations supported by an interdisciplinary consortium of experienced partners paces engages in coparticipatory research with policymakers stakeholders citizens and migrants to generate maximum scientific political and social impact
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digitising smell from natural statistics of olfactory perceptual space to digital transmission of odors
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this proposal is framed by a technological goal we aim to digitize smell achieving this is currently prevented by gaps in basic science we aim to fill these gaps culminating in a proof of concept for our model the primary gap we identify is lack of data on what humans typically smell phrased conceptually in aim 1 we ask what are the natural statistics of human olfactory perceptual space we address this in a series of three experiments highlighted by one where we equip participants with a wearable sampling apparatus we designed and built for this proposal the apparatus measures sniffing behaviour to identify odor sampling measures neural activity to verify olfactory perception takes video of the visual scene analyses total levels of volatile organic compounds in real time and collects odor samples for detailed analysis off line in other words we generate an olfactory equivalent of google street view with the addition of chemical perceptual and neural data using this we will characterise the natural statistics of human olfactory perceptual space moreover a major contribution of this proposal will be in posting this massive data as a publicly available recourse next in aim 2 we will use this data to digitize human olfactory perceptual space we build on a model that allows us to recreate odors using a restricted set of odor primaries we will test our model in two frameworks one we call smellovision where we develop the algorithmic framework to generate an odor to match any digital image and one we call tellesmell where we develop a device to sense the environment the algorithmic framework to transfer the data and a device to generate the corresponding odor remotely we provide pilot data for aim 2 where we sensed an odor in mainz germany transmitted the data over ip to rehovot israel where we successfully recreated the smell this was as far as we know the first transmission of odor over ip
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triad enhancing synergism on telomere function in health and disease
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over the years the eu investments ie erdf and rrf have played a crucial role in advancing biomedical research in underperforming eu member states however in competitive research fields erdfrrffunded labs face significant challenges including mismatches between regional and european approaches disparities between horizon thematic priorities and nationalregional smart specialization strategies as well as variations in funding allocation between consortia and single beneficiaries the absence of coherent internationalization strategies limited training programs and skilled personnel fragmented research endeavors and funding constraints further hinder the development of sustainable research synergies with leading research institutes to address this pressing need we propose triad a program utilizing the upstream synergy model under pathway a to enhance collaboration among three erdffunded labs in greece portugal and the czech republic with a scientific focus on the functional role of telomeres in health and disease leveraging erdf funding the three research teams have developed complementary expertise in research tools platforms and approaches at a regional level the core objective of triad is to enable the individual erdf beneficiaries to overcome isolation through crossborder collaboration and successful participation in horizon europe calls this will be achieved through a comprehensive collaborative strategy to share methodologies an extensive human resources development plan a set of activities to enhance innovation capacity and improve access to european ri networks as well as to increase competitiveness in research funding and establish effective management and administrative structures on site we anticipate that this strategy will establish a lasting legacy benefiting erdf beneficiaries and the wider community by fostering a collaborative ecosystem that will extend well beyond the projects duration
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social economy for resilience inclusion and good life in rural areas
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european rural areas face societal demographic economic and environmental pressures due to global transformations and crises they are in need of a renewal by social innovation that increases their resilience and reduces the adverse effects on their socioeconomic and environmental sustainability unbalanced development impacts their populations livelyhoods and wellbeing in general but it affects the most those people who are already in precarious and fragile positions serigo produces evidencebased theoretical and practicable knowledge on how the social and solidarity economy sse can support resilience social inclusion and good life in european rural areas based on the research results produced the aim is also to provide insights and recommendations on what framework conditions and policy arrangements are necessary to promote this as well as to trigger constructive debates and collaborations around this issue involving diverse set of stakeholders in europethe project applies an intersectional perspective to vulnerability as well as implements critical systems thinking in combination with communitybased participatory research to investigate potentials of the social economy in promoting social inclusion and in enhancing the quality and accessibility of services in rural areas empirical data is gathered in a high number of qualitative case studies from 13 countries on social economy solutions implemented in local contexts using the multiactor approach serigo benefits from more nuanced and live insights into the drivers of social exclusion offered through the lenses of local stakeholders working together with researchers on cocreated experimental pilots in five european regions serigo ensures also with a system of deliberate feedback loops dedicated multilevel policy workshops and a sustained thematic community of practice that the new knowledge generated is pertinent and applicable and all its outputs have high exploitable potential
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programmable active matter
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living systems employ cliving systems employ chemical energy to generate mechanical forces and motion often resulting in emergent phase transitions that manifest as various spatiotemporal structures this inherent behavior makes living systems ideal subjects for the study of nonequilibrium thermodynamics yet their complexity impedes our current experimental control of their phase transitions we propose a novel simple and quantitative experimental system to study phase transitions of living matter in a controlled nonequilibrium environment we create an innovative invitro active system using biological components linking a microtubule motile network to gene circuits that control the system through the local synthesis of building blocks this will allow us to program the constituents interactions type range strength position and the mechanical properties of the carrying media we offer to study dynamical phase transitions from two perspectives 1 internally driven nonequilibrium phase transitions defined by dynamical or nonreciprocal interactions 2 thermal transitions occurring within a nonequilibrium environment we will establish this system by studying microtubules active flow hydrodynamics and pattern formation driven by gene circuits aim 1 we will also program local interactions that defy newtons third law and study their emergent collective dynamics aim 2 lastly study phase transition of thermal deformable soft objects mechanically interacting with microtubules flows aim 3 our innovative approach will yield tools and insights for understanding biomaterial selforganization with broad relevance it has the potential in the field of physics to lead to the discovery of novel phase transitions and explain them quantitatively in biology it helps uncover the mechanisms behind cell shape maintenance and motility regulation moreover it holds promise for industrial applications enabling precise transport control within closed reactors
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sustainable technological accessible and resilient humancentric manufacturing supporting the new european bauhaus through synergies between customized production and consumption models
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starhaus has moving from the diy4u project h2020 starhaus will design test and validate 8 new hardware module prototypes for the existing diy4u manufacturing demonstration facilities mdfs to manufacture newly designed products for personalized fastmoving consumer goods the project will focus on 4 new usecases pet food fertilizers beverage breakfast cereals starhaus will adapt technologies and design new services and processes in an interdisciplinary approach that involves human centered design social science impact and indicators full technology cycle hardware software creativity and arts circularity and sustainability the focus will be on sustainability and circularity enabling the growth of efficient effective sustainable and stakeholderaligned manufacturing methods through reuse adapt redesign and repurpose existing technologies as a value for the larger community the project will be inspired by the new european bauhaus paying particular attention to regenerative design and regenerative and valueadded manufacturing and adopting a humancentric and participatory approach with contributions from social sciences and humanities ssh the project will promote collaborative models between domain experts artists and technology providers improved access to flexible production capabilities in decentralised environments especially for smes will be ensured by fstp and accurate promotion of collaborative models with domain experts artists and technology providers the starhaus approach will leverage creativity in interdisciplinary and artistic disciplines and offer a process model towards viable solutions starhaus is focusing on delivering an impact inside modern consumer communities to propagate behavioral and technological changes that can reshape our lives the consumption habits of modern consumers must change to adopt healthy and sustainable solutions that can be achieved at affordable prices without compromising quality
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sustainable materials for innovative low emissions applications in the circular city
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smile city provides realistic circular systemic solutions to support the evolution towards a carbonneutral environmentally sustainable toxicfree circular economy by 2050 the contribution to c02 reduction works on two levels an intensive use of recycled materials in replacement of virgin ones without decreasing the performance of final products the use of such products and applications to increase sustainable mobilitythe project aims to integrate innovative systemic solutions in up to 100 km of cycling paths and implement 20 ebike charging stations developed using different types of recycled urban waste construction materials eol tyres and eol batteries from electric vehicles the foreseen innovations include the creation of ebike charging stations made of recycled concrete precast elements and pv panels equally produced with recycled materials the installation of recycled rubber moulded products for urban furniture such as rubber bollard lane dividers and rubberized asphalt which contributes both to increase sustainability and safetysmile city will thus assemble the technological state of the art of the different value chains involved to implement circular systemic solutions in 7 different eu and noneu countries backing the transition towards a regenerative inclusive and circular economy at local and regional scale across europe and therefore boosting interregional and crossborder cooperationin addition the project will also increase resource efficiency reinforcing europes strategic autonomy and reduce the negative environmental footprint related to current recycling techniques of the considered urban waste value chains by supporting awareness raising and information spreading smile city will engage both citizens and industrial leaders in the green transition towards climateneutral solutions for circular cities bolstering the market uptake of circular solutions through regional and local actions two partners are ccri members
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photoswitchable ultrathin membranes for molecular separation
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the separation of molecules and ions by membranes is essential for the separation of gases purification of water energy conversionand storage and many other applications and is therefore of crucial technological importance for achieving the sustainable development goals clean water and sanitation affordable and clean energy and climate action defined by the un the membranes established to date suffer either from a poor compromise between permeability and selectivity or from fouling innovative concepts to extend the lifetime of membranes and to improve their separation performance are urgently needed to achieve the aforementioned goals as quickly as possiblephotobrane will train a new generation of leading experts in a completely new approach to membrane technology to take separation performance and longevity to a new level our research will be built on the most modern membrane materials investigated by photobranes pis in our new research approach we are exploring how to use photochemistry methods to develop photoswitching regimes of the membranes wettability to prevent their fouling to achieve unprecedented separation performance we take the photoswitching a step further and investigate the influence of phototuning the structure porosity and polarity of dyeloaded membranes on their function in gaseous and liquid media through this research the doctoral researchers receive interdisciplinary training and through secondments to industrial partners gain insights into various topics of photo and material chemistry as well as membrane technology the excellent research is carried out at renowned european centers of membrane research and photochemistry the mobility within the network combined with excellent research and training creates a highly synergistic framework for success this ensures an efficient transfer of excellent academic results to industry through a new generation of entrepreneurial and highly skilled scientists
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an ai ondemand platform to support research excellence in europe
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europe is implementing an ai strategy that seeks to create a research environment characterised by scientific excellence and consistent with the fundamental ethical values of its citizens part of this strategy foresees the consolidation of ongoing research activities through the creation and maintenance of an ai ondemand platform that will act as a community resource for the research community facilitating experimentation knowledge sharing and the development of stateoftheart solutions and technologies ai4europe builds on the work of ai4eu and multiple supporting projects ict48ict49 creating an open impartial and collaborative platform built by the european research community according to their needs equipped with the necessary hardware the platform will offer interoperable services data and tools from several related communities and provide solutions to facilitate research productivity reproducibility and collaboration ai4europe will establish and support mechanisms to foster exchange between academia and industry and ensure the platform reaches out to and engages with the next generation of researchers and those in widening countries the project will develop and implement a business model that will ensure the longterm technical and financial structures providing sustainability for the platform beyond the lifetime of the project ai4europe will support the community to create a tool that will help position europe as the place where the very best ai research is conducted
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new solutions for hydropower plants to enhance operational range performance and improve environmental impact
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currently hydraulic turbines are employed across a broad spectrum of operational regimes a particular case is represented by the environmental flow eflows which are essential for the conservation of fluvial ecosystems but often force to operate out of design parameters or rather switch off the plants on the other hand the impact of hpps on water quality and biodiversity up and downstream is enormous and should also be a target for refurbishing actions in this context the sherpa project will develop and validate innovative technologies for refurbishing current hpps namely 1 am metallic patches and coatings to minimize damage and enhance resistance to cavitation 2 new strategies to adapt rotational speed depending on the flow range 3 advanced air injection systems to improve water quality and efficiency 4 new runner designs adapted to eflows increasing performance modelling simulation and monitoring tools will assess the new solutions of the in terms of energy output flexible operation costeffectiveness and impact on biodiversity the goal is to expand andor adapt the operational range of the hpp to include lower flows without this harming their lifetime economic viability and environmental and social impact in order to meet this objective the project proposes a methodology comprising 8 work packages groups in four blocks to be carried out during 42 monthssherpa has a wellbalanced consortium with 7 partners from 4 countries covering all the competences and knowhow in terms of expertise resources and positioning in the field which will ensure the achievement of the project objectives and make an impact at european level
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protecting the thymic epithelial cells and thymopoiesis during hematopoietic stem cell transplantation
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allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation allohsct is a common often lastresort treatment for haematological diseases but it is plagued by longterm morbidity and high mortality direct allohsctinduced damage to the thymus and subsequent loss of thymopoiesis ie the production of new t cells is considered one of the main reasons for these complications our limited understanding of how the thymus is damaged during allohsct restricts the development of thymusprotecting protocols the goal of protecthy is to unravel the intrinsic protective mechanisms of the human thymus and assess how allohsct affects them with the ultimate objective of devising measures to prevent thymic damage we take advantage of an innovative whole organ culture system for the human thymus developed in my laboratory and our extensive preexisting collection of human thymus tissue samples spanning a diverse age range protecthy specifically aims to 1 discover how the thymus protects itself from external insults over the course of the human lifetime 2 reveal how allohsct disrupts the human thymus microanatomy and how that damage can be prevented with a cellular therapy and 3 examine how thymic damage affects the circulating true naive t cells and if existing clinical treatments for allohsct complications can restore the loss of thymopoiesis we will apply stateoftheart spatial and singlecell multiomics to dissect these protective layers of the thymus both ex vivo and after alloreactive challenge in vitro moreover by testing the effect of treatments already in clinical use protecthy can resolve their specific mechanisms of action and impact on the thymus our results are thus directly translatable to the human condition and can direct future treatments to enhance outcomes following allohsct as a translational immunologist and clinical microbiologist with extensive experience in human thymus research i am well equipped to uncover the mechanisms of thymic protection
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bottomup reconstruction of a synthetic erythrocyte
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blood is a precious and vital resource for many clinical interventions erythrocytes its key component are used to save thousands of lives every day worldwide yet in low and middleincome countries its scarcity and unsafe control are endemic burdens that cost lives in spite of several decades of attempts to develop a safe and universal blood substitute this goal has yet to be achieved beyond the mere transport of gasses erythrocytes have evolved together with their host organisms to perform very specialized functions it is now clear that much of their complexity is indispensable to establish effective cardiovascular regulation yet reproducing this complexity in a synthetic functional facsimile is a challenging endeavour that requires new methods and multidisciplinary approaches the ambitious goal of synery is to reproduce in an advanced lipid vesicle the following key features of erythrocytes adequate lipid asymmetry with raftlike nanodomains integration of essential functional proteins both cytosolic and transmembrane and a biomimetic cytoskeleton conferring durability flexibility and biconcavity enhanced immune tolerability responsivity to environmental cues such as under deformation and hypoxia these goals will be tackled by an interdisciplinary consortium bringing expertise on dropletbased microfluidics combined with interfacial selfassembly of biofunctionalized nanoparticles to build complex biomimetic membranes with ordered cytoskeletal nanodomains dna origami and selfassembling peptide technologies to reconstruct a biomimetic cell cortex and invivo testing models to verify biocompatibility and functionality the knowledge gained by producing a synthetic erythrocyte is envisioned to enable the production of artificial cells with invivo applicability and it will pave the way towards the future development of an effective blood substitute that can remedy pervasive global blood availability and safety issues
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intermarriage and ethnic identity
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an important element of social cohesion and contact between majorities and substate ethnic minorities are intermarriages which are either welcomed as vehicles easing the tensions between nations and substate minorities or criticized as important drivers of assimilation and the destroyers of ethnic minority communities the social aspects family dynamics and identity construction of family members in intermarriages were not studied methodically in cee and the wb therefore the goal of the intermarriage and ethnic identity imei project is to analyse the social implications of intermarriages between members of ethnic minority communities and the majority nations in vojvodina the multiethnic region of serbia the imei project will contribute to the stateoftheart by analysing the social impacts of intermarriages on three levels namely the individual micro the family meso and the societal macro in a significantly multiethnic geographic region on the individual level the project will examine ethnic and cultural identity transformations undergone by partners in intermarriages on the family level we will explore the processes of intergenerational transfer of ethnic religious and cultural markers on the societal level the project will investigate the workings of the relevant and quite modern ethnic minority policies and legal framework of serbia and their impact on intermarriages this research is relevant in the wider european context as well as we will specifically target the hungarian slovak and romanian ethnic minorities living in vojvodina whose kinstates hungary slovakia romania are members of the european union whose members often have dual serbian and eu citizenship and are therefore subject to the framework convention for the protection of national minorities and european charter for regional or minority languages the european unions key policies for the protection of its minorities
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polartomidlatitude climate linkage effects on cold air outbreaks
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cold air outbreaks are a typical feature of the midlatitude climate during the cold season their relevance relies on the threat to life caused by the longlasting periods with abnormally low temperatures as well as on the potential of damage to crops and the occurrence of highimpact weather events such as heavy snow and low visibility during blizzards previous studies have documented the linkages between climate variability at high latitudes with that at midlatitudes mainly through modulation of the storm tracks jet streams and patterns of stationary waves which promote blocking events the role of other components of the climate system like sea ice is much less understood and remains an open question this becomes even more challenging under the current conditions of fast sea ice reduction in the arctic and the significant trends observed in sea ice around antarctica which leads to an increase in uncertainty in the area of subseasonal to interannual climate predictions as well as for climate projections for the coming decades furthermore significant biases currently exist in the representation of sea ice in stateoftheart climate model simulationsthe main objective of this proposal is to analyze the physical mechanisms linking variability at high latitudes including that of sea ice with climate variability at midlatitudes special focus will be driven onto the mechanisms promoting cold snaps at midlatitudes and on their variability to this aim this project will make use of a data set of veryhighresolution coupled global climate model simulations at around 10 km which is expected to bring significant improvements to the representation of sea ice as well as to its linkages with other components of the climate system outcomes of this project are expected to become useful for decision makers and stakeholders as well as to researchers working in the field of climate predictions and projections
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decoding epistatic genomernome interactions in eukaryotic fitness gain using leishmania parasites as a unique model system
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darwinian evolution plays a central yet poorly understood role in human disease iterations between genetic mutation and environmental selection drive cancer development microbial infection and therapeutic failure thus increasing human mortality the molecular mechanisms that harness the deleterious effects of genome instability to generate beneficial phenotypes in these pathogenic systems are unknown here we investigate this important unsolved question in the protozoan parasite leishmania that causes devastating human infections in the absence of transcriptional regulation these earlybranching eukaryotes exploit genome instability to regulate expression by gene dosage leishmania thus represents an ideal system to investigate how genome instability drives fitness gain in fast evolving eukaryotic cells such as observed during cancer development synergizing our expertise in genomics evolution systems and rna biology we have recently made several breakthrough discoveries that link parasite fitness gain to epistatic interactions between coamplifying genes of small noncoding rnas which program epitranscriptomic and translational regulation we hypothesize that these genomernome interactions generate the phenotypic landscape underlying leishmania fitness gain our proposal investigates this groundbreaking concept through two specific aims that i combine experimental parasite differentiation and evolution in vitro and in vivo to reveal molecular mechanisms underlying leishmania predictive adaptation and fitness gain and ii investigate how rna modification and noncoding rnas contribute to adaptation by regulating mrna stability and translational control our findings will be highly relevant to other fast growing eukaryotic systems that rely on genome instability such as cancer or fungal pathogens
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humour as an epistemic practice of the political present
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something weird is happening in politics satirical parties comedic journalism and memeification are gaining more and more traction the slippages between parody and sincerity play and earnestness real and fake ridicule and seriousness have proliferated at a dizzying rate global entanglements new technologies and the surge in populist politics are producing a cacophony of intricate cognitive social and economic dissonances bordering on the absurd the underlying hypothesis of nojoke is that these dissonances and the comical reactions produce have become formative phenomena of the political present they have seeped into the social fabric and into the ways in which people appropriate their lifeworlds and make sense of themselves and others as political actorsthe practice of humour nojoke argues can help us to make sense of the political present it offers a unique methodology of discovery a specific education by attention with regards to dissonances that elude conventional academic methods bringing together insights from the anthropology of politics and the political from studies on humour satire and laughter and from anthropological advances in ontology epistemology and methodology nojoke will conduct research with humour and humourists and not merely on them and establish a radically new approach to the study of the political present through a longterm comparative study with caricaturists comedians writers of satire satirical politicians and comedic journalists in berlin brussels budapest caracas johannesburg and the iranian diaspora it will follow three objectives 1 to explore the intrusion of humour and humourists into the field of politics 2 to articulate a theory of humour as an epistemic practice a mode of perception creation and anticipation in and of the political present 3 to launch an alternative practice of academic knowledge production by converting the heuristic of punchlines into a practice of theory
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tidal disruption events a new black hole census
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massive black holes mbhs are key players in high energy astrophysics galaxy formation and evolution and astroparticle physics despite their centrality to astronomy we still cannot answer basic questions about mbhs what are their origins how have they grown over cosmic time what are their current demographics to answer these questions the project will turn tidal disruption events tdes from curiosities into reliable probes of mbh parameters a tde occurs when an unlucky star passes too close to a mbh and is ripped apart by tidal forces the ensuing fallback of debris powers a highly luminous potentially multimessenger flare tdes are in principle ideal probes of mbh properties unlike standard techniques for measuring mbhs tdes i happen in all galaxies ii are visible to cosmological distances and iii involve very few free parameters but the theoretical picture of tdes remains confused as the large dynamic range of tdes has prevented ab initio simulations to determine how tidal debris evolves and radiates at present there is no consensus on the geometry or even the power source of observed tde flares making robust parameter estimation impossible i will solve these open theoretical questions capitalizing on my recent pilot study that for the first time ever simulated a typical firstprinciples tdethis project will deliver a firstprinciples simulations of the evolution and emission of tdes b idealized but accurate models of tde light curves and spectra suitable for parameter estimation c a firstever sample of mbh parameters derived from fitting ab initio models to tde observations i will use these results to sidestep the limitations of other mbh measurement techniques and to place unique constraints on the formation and growth history of the smallest mbhs this work is urgently needed in light of upcoming allsky surveys such as ultrasat and lsst which will expand the tde sample from dozens to thousands in the mid2020s
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music as youth empowerment creating connection to self and others
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can music solve global challenges lead to improved connection and empowerment foster an inclusive society i introduce music engagement as a ubiquitous daily resource to advance a critical capacity in a modern world youth ability to connect with self and others the challenge of assessing music as a human resource is that it functions at emotional bodily and situated levels of experience that are difficult to objectively measure however such aspects are integral to stateoftheart conceptions of human cognition and further advancements in empirical research now enable their quantitative assessment in musiconnect i will conduct groundbreaking research to address the emotionalbodilysituated nature of music to conceptualize and objectively measure how when and for whom music engagement functions as empowerment three dialogical work packages will address music as 1 emotional selfregulation 2 embodied interaction and 3 situated engagement young people n 5000 aged 1525 with diverse backgrounds will participate in studies ranging from surveys to experiments i will implement and develop cuttingedge methods to quantify the unmeasurable of music ecologically valid experience sampling of realtime listening experiences physiological measures computational music feature analyses optical motion capture deep learning techniques deep pose estimation digital ethnography and psychometric assessment results will revolutionize the scientific capacity to address music engagement as testable falsifiable and evidencebased practice breakthrough knowledge will be created on the mechanisms of action through which music functions as empowerment and how the effectiveness of this is determined by the interplay of musical individual situational and cultural factors findings can advise educational preventive or social programs that aim to support youth in building their selfregulatory competence and social connections in todays world
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roles of gquadruplexes in kaposis sarcomaassociated herpesvirus latent replication
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kaposis sarcomaassociated herpesvirus kshv is a widespread oncogenic virus whose infection can cause kaposis sarcoma an incurable cancer frequent in immunocompromised individuals similar to other herpesviruses kshv establishes a latent infection in the host characterized by lifelong persistence of the viral genome necessary and sufficient for latent infection are the virally expressed latencyassociated nuclear antigen lana and highly repetitive gcrich sequences on the viral genome named terminal repeats trs while several studies have uncovered the importance of lana in promoting kshv dna replication and segregation during latency the essential role of the trs remains poorly understood in particular the gcrich regions contained in the trs have been speculated to fold into gquadruplexes g4 secondary dna structures that can function as replication barriers but their roles remain elusive a deep mechanistic understanding of the ways kshv maintains itself in latency would be crucial to uncover a way to eradicate the virus from the infected cells before the onset of kaposis sarcoma but this knowledge is missing mainly due to the methodological limitations of investigating kshv latent replication solely in cells with this proposal in aim to take advantage of the xenopus laevis egg extract in vitro system to go beyond such limitations and to gain mechanistic insight in the role of g4s in the latency of kshv by combining my extensive expertise in the field of dna replication with the deep knowledge of prof sara richter at the university of padua in secondary dna structures in viral genomes i aim at mechanistically defining the strategies adopted by kshv to maintain itself in latency and at identifying approaches to prevent viral maintenance in kshv infected cells the proposed project will have great societal impact on cancer prevention and it will be pivotal for my scientific and personal growth into an independent junior group leader
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upscale of an innovative and sustainable biomaterial for the leather industry
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turning animal skin into leather requires significant energy and harmful chemicals and releases substantial amounts of greenhouse gasses alternative synthetic leather is not an option since it is a highly polluting industry we are using biotechnology to address the development of highperformance animalfree and more sustainable materials for the fashion automotive and home goods industries we produce bacleather an ecofriendly material from microorganisms through an efficient and lowcost bioproduction and proprietary process our technology provides solutions to the problems facing the leather industry as our biomaterial has the same performances as the animal ones but are cleaner to produce independent from animals fossilderived and toxic chemicals safer to wear and ready to be used for manufacturers bacleather belongs to the nascent nextgen materials industry with a cagr of 80 annually 20202026 willingness to pay has already been confirmed with potential clients and we have established a collaboration with tempe from grupo inditex one of the most important brand footwear companies owner of zara brand among others to prepare and validate the material for its marketfit within the footwear vertical in 2022 nextgen leather was funded by seed capital investors beable to exploit the technology previously developed by patent shoessl next step to develop this innovation will be to set up a pilot manufacturing plant so we are applying for horizon europe eic accelerator calls but also we need to deploy our market positioning strategy to achieve the maximum visibility of our product and technology among all relevant stakeholders clients and the public in this sense the support offered by women techeu program will allow us that to design and execute a comprehensive communication and marketing strategy in a timesensitive manner to target both potential b2b customers as well as future investors
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industry case studies analysis to improve environmental performance and sustainability of biobased industrial processes
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european industries remain a significant source of pollution 51 of ghg emissions with unsustainable production processes impacting adversely on climate change natural resources availability airwatersoil quality ecosystems services and biodiversity thus a transition to a sustainable and strong bioeconomy is one of the european main priorities as part of the eu industrial policy strategy the european green deal the 2030 climate target plan and the bioeconomy strategy calimero will analyse biobased sectors industrial case studies provided by partners construction ecia woodworking cesefor textiles techtera ereks pulp paper essity and biochemicals bimkemi to find feasible solutions to improve their environmental performance while considering also economic and social aspects a deep analysis and improvement of the biobased sectors sustainability performance by sustainability experts cta weloop list ivl neovili followed by the simulation and modelling of relevant case studies through bioengineering expertise dtu will be conducted to improve current life cycle sustainability assessment methodologies based on the product environmental footprint pef guide to that end missing characterization factors to assess biodiversity loss impacts to ecosystem services and toxicity effects of sectorspecific substances will be developed the allocation methods of biotic circular systems will also be improved and the time dimension for lifecycle carbon footprint assessment will be considered material criticality and socioeconomic indicators will also be included to cover the three pillars of sustainability the improved methodology will be applied via a multi objective optimization framework that will optimize industrial simulations with sustainability criteria finally guidelines and recommendations addressed to industry policy makers and scientific community will be developed for industrial sustainable development and monitoring
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understanding mechanisms of transcription factor cooperativity across scales
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transcription factors tfs are critical regulators of many essential cellular functions such as the acquisition of cell identities in healthy tissues and their dysregulation in disease transcriptional activation of a gene typically requires the cooperative binding of multiple tfs that subsequently recruit various additional cofactors genomics has enabled the generation of a nearcomplete annotation of the cisregulatory elements and tfs binding them across cell types yet the precise function of each tf in the process and how these functionalities are assembled to activate transcription is an important open question here we postulate that despite strong celltype specificity the formation of tf cooperativity modules on dna relies on general principles that are shared across celltypes in tfcoop we propose to formalise these organizational rules by probing the effect of hundreds of thousands of perturbations of individual tfs on the regulatory activity of their network we will apply timeresolved nuclear depletion using optogenetics in parallel for multiple tfs of two related networks and contrast the primary effects of their depletion genomewide in a complementary approach we will develop a reductionist system to study the function of tens of thousands of individual or controlled combinations of tf motifs when inserted into the genome we will leverage the unique properties of single molecule genomics to measure the contribution of each tf to the activity of multiple components of the regulatory system across multiple loci simultaneously this will be followed by factor analysis and deep learning to integrate this large collection of primary effects of tf perturbation and identify the general principles of their assembly into cooperativity networks upon success of the project the resulting models will unlock the understanding of the genetic encoding of cellular identities and allow their manipulation for regenerative medicine
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search for physics beyond the standard model with highly charged ions
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spectroscopy has been a central tool in modern physics it has helped us understand atomic structure the expansion of the universe and the composition of exoplanet atmospheres today highprecision spectroscopy is one of the most promising tools for investigating some of the most fundamental open questions many theories beyond the standard model of particle physics can be tested by detecting tiny changes in atomic transition frequencies caused by the interaction with new particles new forces or the variation of fundamental constants an especially attractive target is the search for temporal or spatial variations of the finestructure constant which is predicted by several different theories highlycharged ions hcis are especially well suited for this search as they have transitions that are over an order of magnitude more sensitive to the fine structure constant than most other atomic systems the precision necessary for these measurements will soon be within reach thanks to recent demonstrations of sympathetic cooling and quantumlogic spectroscopy of hcisi propose an experiment that simultaneously probes two of the most sensitive transitions in hcis using quantum logic spectroscopy and directly compares their transition frequencies this method doubles the advantage of their enhanced sensitivities and reduces systematic effects introduced by an indirect comparison via the si second standard together these gains will allow an improvement of over two orders of magnitude on current bounds on the temporal variation of the finestructure constanti will also take advantage of the exotic nature of these extreme atoms to test further theories of fundamental physics in particular i plan to exploit their enhanced rutherford scattering cross section to determine an improved limit on the number density of proposed millicharged dark matter particlesthis data will help narrow down the most viable theories for physics beyond the standard model
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panafrica network for genomic surveillance of poverty related diseases and emerging pathogens
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the main aim of the proposed project is to use genomic epidemiology of tuberculosis malaria and emerging and reemerging pathogens in africa as to better understand disease etiology dynamics of disease transmission and evolution of drugresistant pathogens the study also aims to increase africas capacity in bioinformatics genomics genomics data management biobanking and promote data sharing our goal is to improve the health of africans with innovations in disease surveillance equip the next generation of african scientists with cutting edge skills and strengthening southsouth research collaborations we propose the following hypotheses 1increased capacity in genomic epidemiology will enable more effective disease surveillance in africa2increased capacity in biobanking and genomics data management and analysis in africa will enhance regional surveillance of infectious diseases and encourage timely and effective responses to emerging pathogens 3regional whole genome sequencebased surveillance will improve the detection of drtb and inform the development of more sensitive and specific rapid diagnostics for the detection and surveillance of drtb in africa and elsewhere4regional genomic surveillance of malaria parasites will inform a preemptive detection of emerging dr parasites and measure the impact of programmatic interventions for a data driven decision making by policy makers5implementation of harmonized genomic data analysis tools will allow the creation of continentwide surveillance networks able to identify crossborder spread of dr variants and emerging pathogens to achieve this pangens will develop genomic epidemiology capacity across africa by establishing a collaborative framework that brings together all expertise to perform trainings and implementation in all relevant components ranging from wet lab to bioinformatics and establish proofofconcept studies for tb and malaria in in selected partner countries
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rural economy and peasant dispossession in the ottoman balkans landed estates çiftliks in manastır
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ruraldispossession investigates ottoman privatelyowned landed estates çiftliks in the late 18th and late 19th century these estates were crucial to the ottoman and postottoman transition from a premodern economy to an industrial one while debates on the nature and function of these estates constitute one of the fundamental historiographical issues for ottomanists they have remained dormant in past decades more importantly historians remain in the dark regarding the phenomenons complexity and regional differentiationthe project traces the history of the balkan çiftlik in relation to the transformation of rural society peasant dispossession labor regimes and the textiles sector it focuses on the district of manastır modern north macedonia a region crucial to the çiftlik phenomenon characterized by a complex network of relations between the estates villages and centers of textile production it wıll analyze the patterns of population change to determine the extent of labor mobility between settlements especially instances of movement from villages into çiftliks and rural textile centers to identify short and longterm labor migration patterns the overall project objective is to investigate the relationship between peasant dispossession çiftlik formation and textile production archival sources include ottoman tax and property registers population surveys and court registers will be combined and analyzed via gis tools to make it possible to investigate the rural history of the district establish a comparative framework with other regions and contribute to the literature on the dynamics of the economic history of the ottoman as well as postottoman balkan world these methods will shed new light upon the çiftlik debate given that ottoman tax and property surveys have been underutilized in historiography and contain a wealth of information that promises much richer and more detailed understanding of the significance of the phenomenon
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hydrodynamics of double membrane spreading in biology
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eukaryotic cells exist in highly dynamic environments and are subject to a variety of existential threats ranging from viruses to pathological defects in their own genome to cope with these challenges cells have developed a conserved pathway in order to degrade harmful objects internal to the cell this process is know as autophagy autophagy involves the formation of a double lipid membrane compartment that wraps around harmful targets such as damaged organelles protein aggregates or lipid droplets in order to facilitate their degradation although the genetic and molecular triggers for autophagy have been analysed in much detail the biophysical principles governing such a dynamic process have received remarkably little attention the biophysics of autophagy is highly complex biophysical process involving the driven nonequilibrium morphodynamics of a fluid membrane that must wrap its target this incorporates molecular signalling and adhesion vesicular trafficking and active force generation and complex flows of the lipid membrane in curved geometries as well as the stokesian hydrodynamics of the embedding fluid this makes the dynamics of autophagy essentially a problem of active soft matter physicsin hydrobiomem i will build on demonstrable expertise in active soft matter physics morphology and fluid dynamics to develop novel theoretical and computational models to give mechanistic understanding and predictions of the dynamics of double membrane wrapping in autophagy i will apply these tools in close collaboration with experimentalists to test existing biological hypotheses and give new insight into this ubiquitous process in cell biology
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dynamics of communities and evolution of antibiotic resistance in wastewater
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environmental antibiotic resistance is a major threat to human and veterinary health and a key issue addressed by the european one health action plan against antimicrobial resistance city sewers shelter rich and diverse bacterial communities that are continuously exposed to antibiotic residues from human excreta thus becoming a reservoir of resistance predicting the risk of antibiotic resistance evolution in city sewers requires a comprehensive understanding of the dynamics and evolution of wastewater bacterial communities faced to such exposition however sewers are complex environments and contain multiple abiotic factors which may act in nonadditive ways in addition interactions between species within communities affect growth and consequently competition through both density and frequencydependent processes by changing the competitive ability of variants such as antibiotic resistant phenotypes interspecies interactions also change evolutionary processesdearwaste aims at understanding the dynamics of communities and antibiotic resistance evolution in city sewers together with establishing wastewater as a model system for fundamental studies on community dynamics and evolution dearwaste adopts an interdisciplinary approach combining highthroughput sequencing technologies environmental chemistry microbial ecology and evolution timeseries statistical analysis and formal modelling data from synthetic mesocosms will parametrize the hutchinsonian niche for population in communities a tolerance curve mapping species performance onto a complex environmental space defined by the multidimensional abiotic environment and species interactions predictions from these curves will be tested against field measurements of microbial and chemical dynamics sampled in city sewers an evolutionary experiment in similar mesocosms will finally quantify how environmental complexity and interspecies interactions modulate the evolution of antibiotic resistance
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engineering of photorechargeable nanoswimmers using multicomponent heterojunctions
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the realization of smart nanoswimmers capable of moving and performing desired tasks in an aqueous environment is a technological challenge due to the viscous and thermal forces exerted upon them while various types of external stimulus can be used to activate their autonomous motion light is the easiest to operate and most flexible due to the opportunities that it offers for motion modulation through intensity wavelength and direction however such optical control is affected by the properties of the aqueous media limiting the applicability of lightdriven nanoswimmers to nonscattering environments the novel approach of this project photoswim is the design of hybrid nanoswimmers that consist not only of photocatalytic but also persistent luminescent materials in order to provide triple lightresponsive lightstorage and lightemissive properties at the material level this project will explore the potential of these innovative photoactivated swimmers to 1 store and emit sufficient light energy to maintain motion in the absence of external irradiation 2 exhibit longterm luminescence for tracking purposes 3 move and interact with their surroundings at high speeds due to efficient charge pair separation and 4 achieve a major control over their motion by wavelength tunability the knowledge obtained will then be used to expand the applicability of these hybrid nanoswimmers in scenarios of limited light penetrability specifically their capabilities to maintain their photoactivity in the presence of chemical and biological interferences along with realtime monitoring of their location by the emitted luminescence will be tested in this way the potential of advanced multifunctioning nanoswimmers to keep moving and interacting with the surroundings in scenarios where the light supply is not fully available will be demonstrated
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smicosmologies exploring indigenous knowledge cultures and practices of stargazing
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this project offers increased understanding of arctic indigenous cosmologies as a form of environmental knowledge and traces their significance for communities in times of environmental crisis with a special focus on traditional smi cosmologies and smi contemporary art the goal is to explore and trace the appearance of human and nonhuman protagonists within indigenous stories especially about the starry polar night skies by reappearing each night these morethanhuman figures became haunting entities which provided abstract naturehuman relationships with a concrete sensual and alluring form today smi artists refer to these haunting figures to draw attention to their troubled cultural history and the present reality of climateaffected regions the integration of traditional recurring ghostly figures from smi storytelling that migrate between the celestial and the earthly as well as the human and the nonhuman stresses the urgency of changing the way humans relate to nature what is more these fascinating haunting and visionary figures provoke speculative futures in which nature is regarded as a nonhuman subject as this concept is becoming increasingly crucial in ecophilosophical debates and policy decisions on environmental justice this project aims to show that smi cosmologies especially when mediated through art can play a vital role in changing humans perspective on nature in recent years contemporary art has been called upon to give a sensual form to the abstract systematic connections of climate change the extent of the current crisis is difficult for people to grasp as a consequence art is gaining a central role within our societies it stands at the threshold between sciences politics and culture this project deals with art that is engaged in the severe environmental changes of this planet and that stands on the threshold between communicating urgency and being more than a mere messenger of environmental research
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the role of novel pkc kinases in integrin activation
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integrins represent a family of cell adhesion receptors mediating cell interaction with the extracellular matrix ligands their ligandbinding activity is tightly regulated and when defective gives rise to thrombosis or inflammation and contributes to cancer progression to date the key steps of integrin activation in response to both extracellular and intracellular signals are well described however the counteracting processes resulting in receptor inactivation remain incompletely understood the host laboratory has pioneered research in this area by screening to identify integrin inactivating proteins involved in neuronal disorders cell migration and cancer although the novel subfamily of protein kinase c npkc has emerged from these screens as putative integrin inhibitors the role of these kinases in regulation of integrinmediated signalling remains to be investigated benefiting from my strong methodological proficiency in protein kinase research and the host laboratorys extensive expertise in integrin biology in cancer i aim to address the role of npkcs in regulation of integrin activation from both mechanistic and preclinical points of view i expect to identify new cancer relevant signalling nodes by executing mechanistic in vitro studies with specifically engineered kinase mutants stateofthe art cancer cell biology and imaging followed by in vivo preclinical cancer studies in cancer models and patient sample cohorts the result of this innovative and interdisciplinary project will represent a valuable basis for potential design of drug targeting strategy and therapeutic intervention not only for treatment of cancer but also of other diseases where npkcs and integrins are implicated
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advanced lasers for quantum technologies
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quantum technologies represent one of the fastest emerging hightech markets the growth in the production of quantumcomputers goes hand in hand with the need for more affordable and reliable components of their hardware in atomic quantumtechnologies frequencystabilised lasers are crucial elements that are used for cooling manipulating and detecting the qubitshowever most of the systems currently on sale in the market are conceived for a laboratory environment rather than for an industrialproduction and the very few turnkey systems that are available are bulky complex and expensivein aqlas we merge an innovative laser design and a recently developed technology on fiber interferometry to realize a newaffordable and compact laser module for implementing entanglement and highfidelity qubit readout in atomic quantumcomputers the new laser module overcomes comparable commercial systems in terms of size 4 to 10 times smaller and cost 2 to 5times cheaper in aqlas we start from a trl 4 proofofconcept that has already demonstrated in the laboratory and enclose it in a transportable 19 rack unit containing all the components which will represent out minimum viable product mvp with the mvp we will reach trl 5 by demonstrating the systems performance in the use case ie a qubit processing at a quantum computer company after this validation we will focus on transforming the mvp into an oem system for industrial production thusreaching trl 6 during the project we will establish a feasible business strategy that will be refined with potential customers andinvestors the funding readiness level will be elevated to 6 and we will create a strong ipr strategy with the goal of creating a newstartup for which a solid investment case is presentedaqlas will foster the quantum computing revolution and contribute in establishing a sustainable quantum computer industrypositioning europe as a leader in a new frontier technology
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engineering carbon quantum dots for zinc ion hybrid capacitors
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zinc ion hybrid capacitors zihcs integrate two energy storage mechanisms of batterytype electrode and capacitive electrode bearing the advantages in energy density power density and safety until now the cycle retention rate of zihcs capacity reported is still not more than 80 restricting its development and commercial application severely focusing on the issue the project aims at overcoming the limitation of traditional electrode materials and redefining the designing concept to construct carbon quantum dots cqds for zihcs advanced methods will be used to harvest carbon quantum dots from coal tar pitch a sort of industrial solid castoff the bulk sp2carbon network innumerable edge sites profuse surface functional groups and regular size ensures that assynthesis cqds have high electrical conductivity sufficient ion transport channels and rich adsorption sites moreover the new concept of dynamic evolution is introduced for insight into the structure and interface failure of zihcs electrode the interfacereconstruction mechanism and the attenuation model of capacity will be established for the first time further the methods to strengthen structures of cqd electrode will be developed based on a tradeoff strategy the ultimate goal is to improve the energy storage efficiency of zihcs by 20 and to increase their cycle performance more than 95 unprecedentedly this research will develop longrunning high performance zihcs for contributing european energy storage industry the er will achieve abundant research experience and scientific skills from the project and the capability to launch her own research group in future
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hybrid polymer nanoparticles as gene vectors
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gene therapy has long been seen as a promising solution to unmet clinical needs and the licencing of gene therapy sarscov2 vaccines has provided a flavour of the technologys potential however gene therapy still faces significant challenges in clinical and commercial translation including the need for effective and safe delivery vectors polymeric nanoparticles offer great flexibility in gene vectors design improved stability and easier scaleup of production compared to lipid nanoparticles but often suffer from cytotoxicity and underperformance in vivo the goal of hyplex is to develop the next generation polymeric nanovectors which can easily be functionalised to further improve delivery efficacy the project will develop novel chemistry to achieve polylysinepolyacrylate hybrid nanogels functionalisation of nanogels will be demonstrated by the introduction of mannose a common cell binding motive as well as diethylene glycol ethyl ether arylate to optimise the hydrophilichydrophobic balance in an interdisciplinary approach gene loading and cell transfection will be studied up to in vitro level the project results will be exploited as part of an ongoing commercialisation initiative at rcsi which will provide the applicant with a unique experience in research translation and commercialisation the highlevel science is complemented by bespoke training activities which will significantly advance the career opportunities of the applicant project results will be communicated to peers as well as the public with specific focus on encouraging female secondary school pupils to take up scientific careers
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applying reactive twins to enhance monument information systems
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the artemis proposal addresses the field of cultural heritage conservation restoration safeguard and valorisation by advanced digital technologies using digital twins and relying on advanced arvr technologies it relies on an extended digital documentation of heritage assets with 3d models incorporated in their digital twins by implementing services on heritage data that model the behaviour of the realworld assets in different conditions and under the effect of complex external phenomena the same approach will allow digital experiments testing the effect of activities simulated on the twin whenever suitable the developed services will avail of arvr techniques to manage the simulation input and to visualize the outcomes artemis will rely on the knowhow of participating worldclass research infrastructures making available a huge amount of heritage documentation data on the contribution of advanced research centres and on the support of specialized technological smes the project will produce a scientific methodology tested on a large number of pilots and will pave the way for innovative applications in heritage research based on digital twins and arvr techniques
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cloud doctoral network
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clouddoc is to establish a network of early stage researchers esrs all phd students at 12 institutions across europe 10 eufunded the role of aerosol nucleation for atmospheric aerosol clouds and climate is investigatedthe focus of investigations will be to study under wellcontrolled laboratory conditions the oxidation chemistry aerosol nucleation and growth processes that are responsible for aerosol particle formation in cold regions of the atmospherea arctic environments b the upper troposphere above the asian monsoon regionc the upper troposphere above tropical rain forests andd the southern ocean the major research activity of the network will be two sets of joint experiments carried out at the cloud aerosol chamber at cern to which all esrs contribute at the cloud chamber nucleation experiments are performed at an unprecedented level of precision and completeness using highly innovative instrumentationa wellstructured research and training plan is set up for every esr as well as a comprehensive qualitycontrolled supervision a highquality phd training is arranged the esrs are brought together for network training events such as summer schools and workshops for integral data analysis courses by worldleading experts are taught spanning from general atmospheric aerosol chemistry and physics to specialized sessions including the role of aerosol for clouds climate and also health the summer schools and workshops are specifically tailored to the needs of the trainees transferable skills training includes courses on scientific writing presentation skills interaction with media entrepreneurship ipr management gender dimension and diversity in science and good scientific conduct the partners from the private sector 1 beneficiary 4 partners are closely integrated in the action
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sustainability certification for biobased systems
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sustcert4biobased project is set on fostering the adoption of effective and robust sustainability certification schemes and businesstobusiness labels for industrial biobased systems to support tracing the sustainability of biobased products along the value chains and trades within the eu and globally for responsible production and consumption to this end a monitoring system will be developed with a lifecycle perspective along four themes environment social economic and governance considering the complexity and relationships of all dimensions of sustainability and the rules and procedures on how the schemes are managed this system will be optimized with pilot audit in practice and testing on existing schemeslabels for biobased systems evaluating their performance in the different themes and their coverage of the list of minimum requirements costs and benefits from the adoption of certification schemes and labels will be assessed considering actual economic as well as internalized environmental and social ones data will be generated on volumes of biological resources and biobased products in global trade flow and extent of their certification we will leverage the results of the project to provide best practices and recommendations to 4 key target groups policy makers sustainability system community industrial biobased value chain actors and regionalrural bioeconomy stakeholders our vision is that this will result in harmonized system requirements continuous improvement and enhanced adoption of sustainability certification schemes and labels and provide a significant contribution towards establishing a circular and sustainable biobased industry for europe contributing to the bioeconomy strategy and green deal the large multisectorial stakeholders involvement through an international network of interest domain and a comprehensive advisory board will enable sustcert4biobased to increase outreach and aligning with ongoing international efforts
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formation and evolution of exocometary discs
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the last two decades of exoplanet discoveries have revolutionised our view of planetary systems and our place in the cosmos bringing us closer to answering fundamental questions about how these systems form and evolve these advancements have however mainly focused on the inner regions of these systems due to the difficulties of probing their colder outer regions despite their importance for the formation and evolution of planets these barriers are nevertheless breaking thanks to observational campaigns led by me and others with alma studying exocometary discs analogous to the kuiper belt and jwst searching for subjupiter mass planets at tens of au this erc program aims to constrain how the outer regions of planetary systems and in particular the debris of which exocometary discs are made form and evolve such an endeavour will require transforming our understanding of three key and interconnected pillars first we must understand how exocometary discs form as their structures encode key information about planet formation processes this will require developing the first holistic models for exocometary disc formation and their comparison with alma observational constraints second we must study what processes shape exocometary discs after formation to be able to use disc observations to infer the dynamical history of systems this will require studying the disc interaction with planets and even stellar encounters while systems are young and comparing the outcome of these interactions with jwst and alma observations third we must advance in our understanding of exocometary gas as it could allow us to infer the presence of planets affect their atmospheres and the distribution of exocometary dust biasing our dynamical inferences only by developing these three pillars we will truly advance in our understanding of exocometary discs a key element fordeciphering planetary systems
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from the mediterranean to the indian ocean through ethnoarchaeology of fuel and archaeobotany
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the objective of this project is to study energy procurement practices and its relationship with environmental economic and social sustainability to do so we aim to carry out ethnoarchaeological fieldwork regarding fuelrelated practices among the vedda indigenous communities in sri lanka in parallel we will develop archaeobotanical research to interrogate these questions in prehistoric and early historical periods of the island the building of a wood reference collection will be key and will boost the development of proper charcoal analyses the results of this research will be integrated to create an educational resource for museums botanical gardens and schools with the aim to bring the study of humans and plants interactions to the general public this project requires f different methodologies whose field of expertise facilities and knowledge are shared between academic and nonacademic organizations in france spain and sri lanka for the successful development of the project we involve 21 persons with different categories phd students postdoctoral and senior researchers technicians and members of nonacademic organizations developing a total of 64 months of secondments in the institutions involved this project will set up the basis for sustainable collaboration between academic institutions working on archaeological charcoal and ethnoarchaeology of fuel and nonacademic institutions engaged in educational resources on ethnobotany and the diversity of human uses of plants the project is organized in 5 packages including four objectives and the management and dissemination of the project the research will be carried out through longterm secondments by phd students and shorter secondments by senior researchers and nonacademic members this project will provide scientific impact by delivering training and resources for the study of charcoal remains and socio and economic impact throughout the production of an educational resource
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twodimensional high entropy alloys and ceramics
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entropy engineering recently had exceptional impact on bulk materials science by invention of bulentropy engineering recently had exceptional impact on bulk materials science by invention of bulk high entropy alloys and ceramics the underlying idea is that by equiatomically adding 5 principal elements to alloyscompounds the much increased configurational entropy stabilizes otherwise nonaccessible single high entropy phases with an unique random elemental occupancy on a crystalline lattice and hence novel functional properties likewise reducing dimensionality in twodimensional 2d materials recently had exceptional impact on materials science due to the 2d materials unique functional properties despite these exciting individual prospects of entropy engineering and 2d materials combination of these two concepts to synergetically create novel 2d high entropy materials 2d hems as a novel materials class with novel functional properties with possible applications in electronics and catalysis remains lacking in highentropy2d we will fabricate unprecedented 2d hems 2d high entropy alloys oxides and sulfides using for the first time scalable vapour deposition and a 2d template2d confinement approach for both 2d film and 2d nanoflake form asses their novel properties and perform first tests of their applicability for electronic devices and catalysis reducing hem dimensionality to 2d will also create a unique opportunity to for the first time study in situ and at the atomic scale currently unknown fundamental diffusion crystallisation phase transition and separation mechanisms in hems using a globally unique scanning transmission electron microscopy stem setup to obtain fundamental insights relevant to hems even beyond the here newly introduced 2d hems the proven track record of principal applicant bernhard c bayer in 2d materials synthesis and atomic scale in situ stem is an ideal basis for this ambitious research programme
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exploration of backendofline compatible tebased ptype transistors with 2d material van der waals contacts for monolithic 3d integration
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the performance enhancement of integrated circuits relying on the downscaling of transistor dimensions following moores law is becoming more and more challenging as silicon is reaching its physical limit thus monolithic 3d integration has been considered as a powerful method to improve system performance further this requires that transistors be stacked on top of each other at backendofline beol compatible temperatures to avoid degradation of underlying devices twodimensional 2d semiconductors are promising candidates for such beol transistors but most advancements in terms of device performance and reliable beol integration concern ntype devices while ptype is still lagging behind hence better ptype beol transistors are highly sought after to enable complementary metal oxide semiconductor cmos technology one of several challenges for ptype devices is contact resistance because wide band gap 2d semiconductors typically have large schottky barriers between the metal contact and their valence band tellurium te and its compounds have recently been identified as promising candidates for beol ptype 2d transistors which offer decent access to their valence bands integration at beolcompatible temperatures and good material prospects for device performance however research on such devices is still in its infancy and drive current stability passivation and contact resistance still need improvements thus in this work we propose to advance the research in tebased ptype devices in particular we will experimentally explore the potential of 2d material van der waals contacts furthermore we will evaluate the cmos logic circuit performance coupling with its ntype counterpart and the prospects of our devices for monolithic 3d integration through simulation
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improvised music and decolonisation
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in the course of the 20th century musical improvisation became strongly associated with emancipatory politics as expressive freedom in music symbolised forms of societal cultural and political freedom more generally in the 1960s european improvisers distinguished their free improvisation from jazz and other improvisatory music by calling it nonidiomatic ie not drawing on previously existing musical styles although the genre of free improvisation has formed a unique space of transnational and intercultural collaboration such a utopian understanding risks an erasure of actual forms of inequality and exclusion after all to draw on ones own musical tradition inevitably means to play in a specific idiom to what extent has this definition of freedom as nonidiomatic playing excluded the participation of musicians of colourthe aim of this proposal is to understand the politics imbedded in free improvisation in a european postcolonial context we investigate the hypothesis that nonidiomatic music constructed a form of musical whiteness in the spheres of musical practice discourse and institutions we develop a novel understanding of musical idiom in terms of differentiation rather than convention and we describe how questions of freedom and idiom were negotiated in musical practice as a case study we investigate the musical practice of improvising musicians from former dutch colonies active in the netherlands after world warr ii ca 19452000 and analyse how they negotiated their position between the idiom of jazz a supposedly universal nonidiomatic form of improvisation and their own musical traditionsthrough archival research oral history and the analysis of musical practices improdeco will make a fundamental contribution to jazz historiography postcolonial perspective on dutch music history musicological theories of improvisation and to current debates about racial inequality in dutch music and society
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twinning of magnetic resonance imaging research institutes
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magnetic resonance imaging mri is known as the most versatile and advanced medical imaging modality capable of producing tomographic images emphasizing different tissue material properties and hence facilitating the diagnosis of a wide range of anomalies the complexity and the importance of mri make it a specific research field with dedicated research centers throughout the world bilkent universitys national magnetic resonance research center umram in turkey is an established mri research center with an excellent research track record but limited access to european research networks the he twinning program aims at networking research institutes from the widening countries such as turkey with their advanced counterparts in europe to integrate widening countries into the european research network in order to integrate umram into the european research networks bilkent universityumram as the coordinating partner together with german cancer research center dkfz germany universittsklinikum freiburg germany and university of nottingham uk as advanced partners are forming a team to conduct an eu horizon twinning project mritwins in the field of magnetic resonance imaging the project teams research expertise lies in the field of mr engineering where novel hardware and enabling software is developed for mri beyond the shortterm goals of the twinning project this team is formed to make a longterm impact on mr engineering research by joining their complementary expertise to initiate a longterm research collaboration between the project participants the twinning program allows for an exploratory research component limited to 30 of the total budget the scope of the mritwins project includes research work where highly credible project partners will explore the topic of reengineering mri scanners with opensource hardware and software with a specific focus on the novel gradient and radiofrequency array technologies
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hybrid dryhot extremes prediction and adaptation
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half a million people die due to heat stress every year these numbers keep rising as climate continues to change heatwaves are becoming more frequent and severe and disproportionally synchronised with droughts droughts reduce the ability of the land surface to cool down via evaporation further enhancing heatwave temperatures nonetheless how these compound droughtheatwave events spatially propagate and their future lethality remains unclear counterintuitive findings now indicate that drought can even dampen heatwave deadliness by reducing air humidityconsequently our ability to forecast dryhot events and their impacts on human health remains limited subseasonal timescales between two weeks and two months have traditionally been a blind spot conventional weather forecast models are not tailored to these scales however the adoption of artificial intelligence ai may hold the key to fill this gap and reliably predict the upcoming occurrence of heat stress episodes weeks in advance this would bring enormous societal benefits by enabling emergency planning in this project we will explore an innovative way to generate subseasonal forecasts of droughts and heatwaves and their consequent human heat stress episodes a hybrid approach will be embraced ie an approach based on physicsbased models combined with ai algorithms building upon this approach we will deepen our understanding of the climatic drivers of human heat stress and explore the future benefits of landbased adaptation practices designed to attenuate these events including afforestation crop selection and largescale irrigation altogether heat will foster our preparedness and resilience to future heat stress episodes by improving their prediction investigating the mechanisms that trigger them globally and providing realistic and effective landadaptation strategies to mitigate them while heralding the adoption of hybrid approaches in climate science
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circular valorisation of industrial algae waste streams into highvalue products to foster future sustainable blue biorefineries in europe
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algae biomass is highly underexploited and its efficient utilization is one of the main challenges in current and future eu marine policies towards sustainability circalgae will boost the blue bioeconomy by applying an integrated biorefinery concept to valorise the massively produced over 36 mt of algae biomass annual world production and vastly underexploited algae industrial waste streams which can add up to 95 of the initial biomass from the main existing sources to date the phycolloid production from macroalgae and proteinlipid microalgae industries circalgaes simple waterbased technologies will transform these waste streams into valueadded ingredients to be used in specific texturized vegan foods healthpromoting food ingredients protein rich feed and cosmetic formulations incorporating texturizing or highly bioactive ingredients for topical use 3 blue biorefinery schemes upscaled to hundreds of kg will be demonstrated throughout circalgae project 12 demonstrator products will be developed by food feed and cosmetic industry partners validating the great potential of novel algae ingredients in these key sectors additionally 2 final products will be qualified for market including their studies in consumer acceptance assessments through cocreating and colearning circalgae will connect all algae crosssectional actors including industrial enduser partners rtos technological and consultancy smes for the validation of all healthpromoting effects and claims regulatory aspects and environmental economic and social impacts engaging all relevant stakeholders in the primary sector to reshape the current industrial network for a future thriving blue bioeconomy
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recognition and acknowledgement of injustice to strengthen equality
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recognition and acknowledgement of injustice to strengthen equality raisestructural racism exists because of social constructions of group demarcations such boundary making processes are at the root of both structural and individual xenophobia and racism this project therefore first aims to empirically map boundary making processes in peoples everyday life institutional contexts second the project aims to provide empirical evidence in what actions as a response of boundary making processes will support equality raise draws on the assumption that to reduce structural racism people and the institutions they operate in have to be aware of these underlying boundary making processes that reproduce structural racism and the role it has in lasting inequalities recognition and acknowledgment of these forms of injustice will contribute to social action for equality the project will be the first in europe to study the awareness of boundary making processes in reproducing structural racism and what collective actions contribute to break through such boundary making processes to reduce structural racismby taking an interdisciplinary approach from theologists big data scientists social psychologists geographers political scientists economists and sociologists and by creation of research in collaboration between ngos that address racism and xenophobia operating in precarious contexts ngos from hungary poland and turkey and academics this project is at the front of generating new insights on structural racism in europe
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triboelectric nanogenerators printed from composite inks for energy harvesting
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triboelectric nanogenerators have recently emerged as a very promising energy harvesting technique for transforming mechanical energy into electrical energy their emergence is especially timely as the world undergoes a sustainable energy revolution and these devices have successfully demonstrated energy harvesting from a vast range of applications from wind to wave to wearable textiles importantly they can also be fabricated from common materials such as paper polymers and graphite however as most highly triboelectric materials are polymeric they suffer from low currents and brittleness under friction with high performances usually only achieved using complex materials with a large number of processing stages these are major challenges that are preventing the widespread and longterm application of these devices this project will simultaneously address all of these issues by developing a printable polymeric composite containing 1d carbon nanotubes to improve both mechanical strength electrical conduction and 2d nanosheets of molybdenum disulphide to improve the charge retention operation lifetime which in combination with a paperbased tribopositive layer will form the basis of a lowcost high performance robust triboelectric nanogenerator crucially as this composite will be printable it will be compatible with scalable processes such as rolltoroll or flexographic printing success here will be achieved by combining the applicants expertise on printable nanomaterials with the supervisors knowledge and background on triboelectric generation and energystorage devices we will also demonstrate the practical utility of these devices by printing a device capable of harvesting energy from a bicycle tyre under cycling conditions the creation of an optimised ink in combination with additive manufacturing techniques means we will be easily able to print devices that can ultimately be integrated into a wide range of harvesting applications
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sustainable decarbonised vanadium titanium and iron extraction from europes lowgrade vanadiumbearing titanomagnetite deposits
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the ecs critical raw materials crm act sets multiple benchmarks for reducing europes dependency on a few unlikeminded third countries for strategiccritical raw materials through the domestic extraction of two crms vanadium v and titanium metal ti metal avantis addresses the first target of the act 10 domestic extraction for v ti avantis rationale lies in the fact that europe has a multitude of unexploited lowgrade vbearing titanomagnetite deposits in finland sweden greenland norway poland ukraine however these deposits have a complex spiderweblike mineral assemblage without selective blasting selective fragmentation and preconcentration technologies to separate the tirich ilmenite grains from the vbearing magnetite it is uneconomic to exploit these deposits supported by a bespoke forensic geometallurgy approach avantis develops a novel selective blasting approach that allows for rock excavation in view of increased mineral liberation at the blasting stage and reduced energy demand in the crushing grinding stages likewise avantis designs tailored waterfree and waterlean preconcentration technologies that allow to produce two distinct preconcentrates 1 ilmeniterich tipreconcentrate and 2 ilmenitefree vpreconcentrate the waterlean method is also tailored to process vtibearing mining wastes from historicalongoing operations the resulting flowsheets have a low net water consumption 70 water recycling and reduced ghg intensity of extraction reduction of 60700 g co2eq per t ore hauled to the crushing plant a preliminary analysis of the potential european reserves that are unlocked yields a total of 154 mt ti 35 mt v still excluding ukraine to be compared with current levels of eu consumption 15 mty ti 127 kty v avantis strengthens the responsible mining in europeparadigm increasing societys trust in domestic crm production
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targeting kidney fibrosis by a novel myofibroblast specific small molecule inhibitor
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chronic kidney disease ckd is a progressive disease that is prevalent in 10 of the developed world and develops as a result of diabetes mellitus hypertension glomerulonephritis or acute kidney injury over time ckd can progress to endstage renal disease esrd a condition that can only be treated through hemodialysis or kidney transplantation posing a severe medical societal and economic challenge fibrosis is recognized as a key pathological mechanism in ckd responsible for slowly destroying the tissue architecture of the kidney current therapies for ckd alleviate symptoms of the disease by controlling hypertension and hyperglycemia but while fibrosis is as a promising therapeutic target no antifibrotic therapy for the kidney have reached the clinic hence there is an urgent need for diseasemodifying and curative treatments that can halt fibrosis in fibrotarg we will assess the technical and commercial feasibility of fibrolisine a firstofitskind antifibrotic drug candidate for the treatment of ckd our preliminary data has confirmed a unique expression profile of our therapeutic target and reduced fibrosis onset in in vivo knockout models without sideeffects after kidney injury hence fibrolisine is expected to target the process of fibrogenesis and halt the progression to esrd in earlystage ckd patients through the activities in fibrotarg project we aim to demonstrate the antifibrotic potential of fibrolisine in advanced human kidney fibrosis organoid models and in vivo models of kidney injury concurrently we will investigate the commercial potential of fibrolisine by analyzing the commercial landscape and develop an initial commercialization strategy
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formalizing verifying and applying isa security guarantees as universal contracts
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the instruction set architecture isa is the interface that processor hardware offers to software developers current isas do not explicitly specify the security properties guaranteed by that interface so that for example recent severe microarchitectural sidechannel vulnerabilities like spectre did not even violate the specifications this project proposes a fundamentally new approach to specify isa security properties by using what we call universal contracts these are formal contracts in a compositional program logic that automatically hold for arbitrary code such contracts capture isaenforced upper bounds on the effects of arbitrary even attackercontrolled software while this approach is widely different from traditional specifications the approach looks extremely promising universal contracts can be applied to general security primitives mechanically verified against the isas operational semantics and they make it possible to obtain fullsystem security proofs by manually verifying only the trusted code of a sytemin this project we will contribute reusable techniques and tools for applying universal contracts in realistic isas to this end we will 1 design prove and evaluate universal contracts for isas with stateofpractice security primitives 2 develop semiautomation machinery for verifying universal contracts of isas 3 extend universal contracts to deal with semantic complications like concurrency or microarchitectural sidechannels and 4 design implement and evaluate techniques which facilitate the construction of trusted software that relies on universal contracts particularly assemblylevel reasoning support and secure compilers if successful the project has the potential to fundamentally improve the security foundations of all softwarebased systems by 1 clearly dividing the security responsibilities between hardware and software developers and 2 enabling scalable rigorous fullsystem security proofs
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aipowered early warning and surveillance system to identify the risks within the food supply chain
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a product recall is the process of retrieving defective andor potentially unsafe goods from consumers it is the result of safety concerns over a manufacturing defect in a product that may harm its user it can tarnish a companys reputation leading to multibillion euros in losses for small companies it may lead to the end of their operation because they operate without robust cash flow and brand recognitionin the fb category mycotoxins pathogen contamination and pesticide residues are the most common reasons alone in 2021 there has been a yoy increase of 19 in the global recallsicomplai helps companies assess monitor and predict product risks worldwide for consumer goods with a focus on food icomplai provides services in the area of product benchmarking and virtual testing helping companies better assess the risks and opportunities for their products as well as what the customers like and dislikeicomplai solution differentiates itself through deep analysis on product features helping companies understand the preferences of the consumers for instance in regard to sensorik packaging specifications or microbiological quality of the products this platform helps manufacturers assess monitor and predict the risks of their products and supply chain it is currently focused on foodicomplai platform is intended as an early warning system to help food manufacturers bring safe products to the market the platform is updated daily with new information which is fed into the machine learning algorithm the results are then sent to the users based on their customisation the daily alerts include both the current as well as the future potential risks
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intelligent and selfadaptive decision support system for optimization considering sustainable value creation and lifecycle approaches in shipping
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despite its growth the shipping sectors sustainability transition lags compared to other sectors if left unchecked a 90130 increase in emissions by 2050 is forecasted with significant socioeconomic impacts though regulatory changes are emerging many criticize them for their narrow scope and lack of ambition lacking a clear approach that embodies ocean air and marine ecology preservation nereusshipping aims to develop a comprehensive and selflearning decision support system dss based on sustainability circularity and risk metrics following a lifecycle approach to highlight how shortterm operational decisions can affect the longterm sustainability of the vessel using the proposed tool stakeholders will be able to obtain vesselspecific suggestions for risk reduction considering environmental social and commercial goals nereusshipping stands out for its novel approach of integrating tools that were up till now employed in silos within a novel dynamic framework to offer a practical and costefficient solution that combines lifecycle assessment data analytics risk mapping and realtime data this tool will become an effective dss for identifying sustainability and circularity opportunities while its dynamic nature will allow updating of the metrics using vessel performance and supply chain dataunder this msca program the fellow will join one of europes most advanced teams on environmental engineering and circular economy national technical university of athens with further complimentary training in two other eu academic institutes technical university of crete and technical university of denmark and collaborate with industrial partners during the project the fellow will gain knowledge on sustainability risk modelling decision making cyberphysical systems and digital tools while also expanding his collaboration network the results will make educational and social impact through engagement with academic institutions and the public
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order at the mesoscale connecting supercomputing of compressible convection to classical and quantum machine learning
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turbulent convection flows in nature display prominent patterns in the mesoscale range whose characteristic length in the horizontal directions exceeds the system scale height known as the turbulent superstructure of convection they are absent on both larger and smaller scales and evolve in ways not yet understood but they are an essential link in the heat and momentum transport to larger scales an important driver of intermittent fluid motion at submesoscales and one major source of uncertainty in the prognosis of climate change and space weather in mesocomp i will investigate the formation of superstructures in massively parallel simulations of compressible turbulent convection in horizontally extended domains aiming for a deeper understanding of their dynamical origin and role in the transport of heat and momentum i will then use these highfidelity simulations to build recurrent machine learning models to predict the evolution and statistics of the superstructure and thus quantify the transport fluxes beyond the mesoscale i will also analyse the impact of the mesoscale structures on the highly intermittent statistics at the smallscale of the flow and reveal the resulting feedback in the form of improved subgrid parametrizations by means of generative machine learning mesocomp opens additional doors to the application of quantum algorithms in machine learning which significantly improve the statistical sampling and data compression properties compared to their classical counterparts from a longerterm perspective my research results in a quantum advantage for the numerical analysis of classical turbulence which accelerates the parametrizations of mesoscale convection and increases their fidelity this work will finally lead to more precise predictions of the ongoing climate change and global warming the results will also improve solar activity models and thus solar storm prognoses with impacts on satellite communication and electrical grids
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biogenic co2 capture into sustainable energy carriers a novel photosynthetic and hydrogenotrophic co2 fixation combined with waste nutrient upcycling for production of carbon negative energy carriers
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this research project endeavours to pioneer a biological solution for mitigating carbon dioxide co2 emissions from effluent gases produced by bioenergy combustion systems the primary focus is on converting the captured co2 into carbonnegative energy carriers specifically emphasizing the photosynthetic conversion of biogenic co2 into energyrich biomass the transformation of this biomass into widely used renewable energy carriers such as biocrude and biogas is targeted with an additional emphasis on enriching these carriers with renewable hydrogen to achieve carbon circularitythe project is structured to address key aspects including efficient biogenic co2 capture from effluent systems development of resilient microalgae strains to enhance resistance to flue gas toxicity novel biomass pretreatment methods for cell disruption and nitrogen removal concurrent production of biostimulants and improvements in the efficiency and sustainability of hydrothermal liquefaction biocrude anaerobic digestion biogas and hydrogenotropic conversion of co2 to biomethane the ultimate goal is to validate the viability of the developed direct co2 fixation methods through integration with effluent systems at a pilot scale reaching trl5this multifaceted approach underscores the projects commitment to advancing sustainable and efficient methods for biogenic co2 fixation and subsequent conversion into renewable energy carriers to assess the economic viability a detailed technoeconomic analysis of the proposed carbon capture and use solution will be conducted furthermore sustainability and social impact assessments will be performed taking into account circular economy principles and addressing social economic and environmental aspects in alignment with the priorities outlined in the european green deal
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increasing transmission distance of wireless power links for active implantable medical devices
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cardiovascular diseases neuronal conditions and metabolic disorders together cause 22 million deaths each year worldwide fortunately those conditions can often be addressed through local sensing and treatments using for example active implantable medical systems aimds or transcutaneous bioelectronic devices to be invisible to the patients those devices should have the smallest volume possible which means they pack only limited data and energy storage relying on a wireless link to get recharged and to transfer data improvement in this link is urgently needed as todays poor transfer distance few centimeters leads to discomfort cognitive overload induces stress reduces quality of life and is associated with several suboptimal treatment outcomes because of this drawback many medical solutions already validated in the lab cannot be implemented on patientsmy aim is to achieve a major advance in the way energy and data are transferred and to gain an order of magnitude in the wireless transfer distance over existing technologies through the development of a novel timemodulated magnetic coupling strategythe approach will consist of wp1 developing a smart qmodulation which operates in a manner similar to regenerative braking systems where energy is temporary saved when the quality factor of the resonator has to be reduced for data transmission and later reused to increase the quality factor for power transmission wp2 maintaining the system in energyefficient operation against the body changing environment and wp3 guaranteeing a safe operation of the power transfer linkby enabling new wireless scenarios this project will enable a whole set of new medical devices to reach the market providing autonomously and imperceptibly operation to the user thus alleviating their cognitive burden the technology will also be transferable to many other applications such as industrial sensing reinforcing the european leadership on the field
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the first ivdrapproved commercial software solutions for aipowered rnabased companion and precision cancer diagnostics of acute myeloid leukaemia and bladder cancer
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qlucore is developing visualisationbased analytical solutions with an established position in the nextgeneration sequencing ngs market as pioneers in rnadata analysis we aim to revolutionise the field of companion and clinical diagnostics by developing software platforms integrating aipowered machinelearning classification models for gene expression signatures and gene fusion analysisby providing highly accurate and specific diagnoses our platform represents the future of precision oncology putting europe at the forefront of aipowered cancer classification a softwarebased setup speeds up the introduction of new clinical guidelines and companion diagnostic solutions with the ultimate purpose of increasing survival rates and overall health we aim to cover all cancer types relevant for gene expressionbased diagnostics and then scale up into noncancer indications eg cardiovascular and neurological diseases immunological disorders and other data types eg proteomics and singlecell rnaseq further disrupting the precision diagnostics industry currently we are preparing the solution with a classification model for bcell progenitor acute lymphoblastic leukaemia bcpall for the first ivdr certification proof of concept building on those achievements and leveraging regulatory and data management experience and progress in the proposed project we will focus on acute myeloid leukaemia aml and bladder cancer bc for aml and bc we will develop and cecertify classification models and companion diagnostics cdxspecific classification models the successful completion of this project will significantly improve europes position in genomics and aibased precision diagnostics and as such prompt similar initiatives across europe this will allow the eu to compete effectively with market leaders in particular the us and offer significant benefits to patients diagnosed with cancer and society as a whole
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fostering local beautiful and sustainably designed regenerative textile and clothing ecosystems
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the transition towards a more sustainable digital and inclusive economy in europe requires a humancentred approach that combines digital and industrial technologies and which has an eye for spatial dynamics however there is a lack of integration between different disciplines and initiatives resulting in missed opportunities for this transition fabrix aims to address this challenge by adopting an integrated approach to local and regenerative urban manufacturing combining spatial design developing opportunities for industrial symbiosis and circular manufacturing and by value chain analysis and management fabrix will develop an innovative and interactive platform mantel that supports local valuechain management for more circular and regenerative urban manufacturing fabrix focuses on the textile and clothing sector tc in athens greece and rotterdam the netherlands tc is one of the most environmentally and socially unsustainable sectors it is a priority in the european green deal the circular economy action plan and the industrial strategy the core innovation of fabrixs research design and implementation is the entanglement of spatial and relational perspectives perspectives that cannot be seen apart but that in practice are mostly dealt with separately in policy and research thus hampering significant progress fabrix allows for a proactive cocreated implementation and change of the observed suboptimal reality fabrixs focus on the tc sector its innovative mix of research methods its interactive opensource digital platform of tools and its capacitybuilding fabrix academy will ensure the transferability during and beyond the research and innovation action to other places and other sectors dealing with similar suboptimization
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definable algebraic topology
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this project addresses fundamental issues in the development of algebraic topology coarse geometry and other areas of mathematics related to the problem of doing algebra when the structures under considerations also have a topology a number of other approaches have been proposed recently showing the current importance of these issues for the mathematical community the approach followed in this project is unique in harnessing powerful tools from mathematical logic and especially descriptive set theorythe fundamental idea is to enrich an algebraic object with additional information provided by a polish cover which is an explicit presentation of the given object as a suitable quotient of a structure endowed with a compatible polish topology the goal of this project is to show that fundamental invariants from homological algebra algebraic topology operator algebras and coarse geometry such as ext cech cohomology kktheory and coarse khomology can be seen as functors to the category of groups with a polish cover furthermore doing so provides invariants that are finer richer and more rigid than the purely algebraic onesthese invariants will allow us to tackle classifications problems for topological spaces coarse spaces calgebras and maps that had been so far out of reach furthermore we will use these invariants to calibrate the complexity of such classification problems from the perspective of borel complexity theory in turn this will enable us to isolate complexitytheoretic consequences of the universal coefficient theorem for calgebras and of the coarse baumconnes conjecture for coarse spaces and to construct examples of strong failure of such results ultimately the completion of this project will lead to the development of entirely new fields of research at the interface between logic and other areas of mathematics algebraic topology coarse geometry operator algebras
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mercenarism and the accountability void finding routes to accountability and remedy for the victims of human rights abuses perpetrated by mercenaries
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the recent increasing use of mercenaries in armed conflicts such as in libya central african republic nagornokarabakh mali and ukraine has focused attention on some of the problems arising from the deployment of these private actors their involvement in proxy wars predatory recruitment and asymmetric warfare which internationalise exacerbate and prolong armed conflicts creates space for grave human rights abuses and war crimes millions of people are directly negatively impacted by mercenaries globally but accountability is rare and so these actors operate with impunity their victims denied access to justice and redress in essence mercenaries operate in an accountability void academic attention until now has focused on the antimercenary norm definitions of mercenary and treatment of mercenaries but there is little research on how accountability and remedy is ensured for victims of mercenarism mercury focuses on this accountability void combining cuttingedge datadriven mapping and analysis of mercenary operations with thorough legal and qualitative analysis the mapping will provide a novel understanding of mercenaries to underpin groundbreaking legal analysis of the shortcomings and weaknesses of national and international frameworks when it comes to remedies for victims via legal and qualitative analysis mercury will evaluate routes to accountability and remedy via international and national human rights courts tribunals mechanisms and transitional justice processes and propose potential pathways to justice for victims pi macleod is internationally recognised for her expertise on mercenaries and human rights together with the mercury team she will offer pioneering scholarly insights into routes to accountability and remedy the richer understanding derived from mercury will help inform stakeholders on how they can better prevent abuses perpetrated by mercenaries or failing that ensure accountability and redress for victims
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stable 211atlabeled radiopharmaceuticals for targeted therapy
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astatine at is the rarest naturally occurring astatine at is the rarest naturally occurring element on earth exhibiting only shortlived radioisotopes one of them 211at decays with a halflife of 72 h by emission of a highly energetic alpha particle making it one of the rare alpha emitters suitable for targeted alpha therapy tat of cancers if bound to an appropriate cancer targeting molecule because the number of cyclotrons able to produce it has seen a significant rise in the past years it is expected that 211at will become more accessible and play a major role in the development of tatastatine belongs to the halogen elements and despite more than 80 years since its discovery many chemical properties remain to be discovered this lack of knowledge is due to the absence of stable isotopes and the availability in minute amounts that preclude the use of standard analytical methods yet research has shown that at behaves similarly to metals but also to halogens forming bonds similar to its closest homologue iodine such as the carbonat bond this strategy is the main approach currently available to develop 211atlabeled radiopharmaceuticals yet a lack of in vivo stability of the cat bond is often observed resulting in the release of 211at before it reaches its target and leading to irradiation of healthy tissues improving this stability is therefore a major challenge that remains to be overcome in order to unleash the potential of 211at in cancer treatmentsin this context the objective of the satradio project is to explore alternative bonding modalities to the cat bond in order to develop novel radiolabeling approaches with improved in vivo stability the strategies developed will exploit both the halogen and the metallic character of at using analytical and computational approaches that have recently become available and making possible to elucidate the chemistry of this enigmatic elements at the trace concentration it is available
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connecting pockets of metacity excellence around the baltic sea region
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the main objective of metacities is to speed up consolidate align and leverage the existing metacity and smart city initiatives of the partner regions and through this build the worlds leading connected metacity region across the baltic sea bsrmetacity is a novel smart city and urban innovation concept focusing on open innovation which is supported and encouraged by digital environments and social networks metacity is responding to and leveraging on the postpandemic transition to virtual cooperation and virtual urban services metacity is an emerging regional policy objective already in regional policy planning in oulu region and latvia metacity aims to expand ictoriented smart city development to a wider base of regional innovation capabilities and innovation capture including for example service innovations and social innovationsthe metacities project connects a balanced mix of metacity and smart city ecosystems definite global thematic leaders thematic followers urban capital areas midsize central towns and more rural regions it will strengthen ecosystem collaboration between the metacity regions in the baltic sea area and prepare the collaboration opportunity space it will create a joint action plan for baltic sea metacity regions and decide the action plan details in interaction with regional funding decisionmaking metacities aims to position the eu bsr area as the worlds leading connected regional innovation valley for metacity innovations
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green recycling route for smco permanent magnet swarf
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permanent magnets pm have a wide range of applications and play an important role in the realization of a sustainable future with the increasing demand for green and renewable energy production and sustainability comes a rise in popularity and demand for electric vehicles ev and hybrid electric vehicles hev which use permanent magnetdriven electric motors however the development of technology and shrinking dimensions of parts used for such technologies has made postprocessing and machining of the bulk pms inevitable this in turn leads to a 30 waste of the magnetic material as swarfrejects pms are made of a combination of rare earth elements ree transition metals tm and some other elements the scarcity of the rees and volatile and unstable price of the tm market especially cobalt has pushed the eu to encourage scientists to come up with feasible methods to revive the mentioned waste and thus achieve a circular economy and guarantee sustainable energy production and by doing that help the eu to achieve its green deal initiative goal set for 2050 the recycling of samariumcobalt smco permanent magnets has been the target of a number of scientific studies however the proposed methods are all very energyintensive and require a lot of mineral acids and generate a huge amount of wastewater during the process in this proposal we suggest a green and facile method based on electrodeoxidation of the oxidized magnet swarf which will require much less energy consumption and will require a negligible amount of acids and chemicals compared to the conventional methods
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reimaginecrops a realtime mobile multimodal positron emission tomography and multiphoton endoscopic technology for realistic infield quantitative imaging of crops
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sustainable agriculture strategies have become central to european and global orientations as the demand of food increases with the rising world population current technologies qualitatively drive the application of nitrogen nfertilizers to stressed field areas but cannot precisely modulate the needed amount resulting in dangerous n dispersion ecological and economic losses reimaginecrops envisions applying basic plant science into crop management by quantitative infield measurements of biophysical processes occurring at tissue and cellular level the consortium will implement the first realtime infield portable multimodal multiscale positron emission tomography petmultiphoton endoscope me technology pet measures the metabolic processes in the crops at the scale of hundreds of micrometers while guiding the me system to visualize functional mechanisms at a cellular level the aim is to tailor the amount of fertilizer to be used by enabling measurement of functional processes reflecting the local and systemic crop signal pathways triggered by nfertilizer shortly after applicationreimaginecrops involves realtime pet reconstruction hydrodynamic modelling optical fiber transmission optics and features identification in multiple scales it enables a new multimodal mobile technology for the first time with unprecedented spatial resolution 06 mm1um and realtime functionality at a rate of 210 hz these are enabled by a multimodal petme tracer based on the lifeactvenus protein labeled with 89zr reimaginecrops brings together eight institutions with leading scientists and crossdisciplinary expertise among them eurobioimaging eric and bfedu a large agrifood enterprise will boost the impact and dissemination of this novel technology in to the european scientific and industrial landscape on this basis reimaginecrops has the potential to support and shape the essential priorities in the eus future sustainable crop management
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unight the unita researchers night
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the key of unight is inclusiveness the project is designed to expand the outreach action of the european researchers night and maximize its impact bringing the event to new cities and to rural semirural and mountain areas that are usually less involved in this kind of event this is possible thanks to the participation in unight of the members of unita one of the european university alliance strongly committed to the valorisation of rural and mountain areasthe activities are conceived to increase the public recognition of rd in terms of impact on citizens and communities daily lives to this aim the project will embrace the approach of horizon europe missions framing the communication in a challengebased narrative that translate critical issues into concrete objectives and make the researchers work tangible and linked to real life unight will also enhance the direct participation of people to the research process by launching a transnational citizen science project to highlight the contribution that citizens can bring to science and the benefit they can get in terms of personal developmentunight will also promote the role of citizens as key stakeholders in the debate on societal challenges and will activate a constructive interaction with policy makers and scientists to this aim unight will create concrete opportunities for opening this dialogue by launching cocreation processes that lead to more inclusive decision policymaking unight will also develop innovative training resources to support researchers in becoming better listeners to citizens needs and concerns and to build a stronger relationship with societyunight intends finally to become an open laboratory for communication and outreach practices where the partners can pioneer innovative actions but also nurture a stronger culture of public engagement within the european academia through the direct connection of unita with all the other european university alliances
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decoding extracellular vesiclemediated organ crosstalk in vivo
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to coordinate activities between different tissues multicellular organisms critically rely on intercellular communication whereas homeostatic signalling within organs is studied extensively interorgan crosstalk is only starting to be unravelled in recent years extracellular vesicles evs have emerged as central mediators of this pathway by shuttling specific bioactive cargo including proteins between cells these nanosized lipid vesicles are released by virtually every cell type are transported via the blood and combine the intricacy of cellcell contact with the longacting range of cytokines however due to their small size and a lack of suitable approaches to what extent endogenous evs mediate interorgan crosstalk and support custom cargo delivery is unclear i recently developed a unique transparent zebrafish embryo model expressing optical evreporters to examine endogenous ev biology at unprecedented detail in vivo the aim of this proposal is to understand endogenous evmediated organ crosstalk by studying evs secreted by the liver the central metabolic hub in vertebrates to this end i will decode hepatic ev communication routes in vivo in health and liver pathology by exploiting my model system combined with novel tools and highresolution microscopy i will pursue three keyobjectives 1 targets mapping hepatic ev target organs 2 contents analysing custom cargo delivery by hepatic evs to specific target organs 3 function determining the function of endogenous hepatic evs by developing and applying molecular tools to interfere with their release in vivo this project will provide the first advanced mapping of endogenous ev interorgan crosstalk in a living model organism by studying how pathology impacts ev mediated organ crosstalk and gaining precise control over ev release in vivo i will obtain unique insights into ev pathophysiology in turn this will open avenues for optimized diagnostics and therapeutic intervention
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ondemand generation of multiphoton linear cluster state
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photonic quantum devices promise a scalable way to realize realworld applications of quantum communication and computation an integral part of this vision comprises utilizing cluster states ie a type of highly entangled multiqubit state which provides the fault tolerance needed in almost all quantum protocols i plan to demonstrate the first ondemand multiphoton cluster state source although the realization of an efficient cluster state source has been a longstanding challenge recent improvements in quantum dot spin control and the collection efficiency in photonic crystal waveguides have made this ambitious goal feasible i will use a recently established technique to prepare and cool the nuclear spins surrounding the quantum dot cooling down the nuclear spins will improve the electron spin dephasing time by 20 folds to 50 ns which corresponds to above 99 spin rotation fidelity to improve the photon collection efficiency i will utilize a onesided photonic crystal waveguide which provides a nearunity coupling to a single waveguide mode moreover i will use an inverse design method to improve the chiptofiber coupling efficiency to above 90 the cluster state generation will be implemented with a timebin protocol which entangles the quantum dot spin states with the emission time of single photons using realistic experimental parameters the estimated threephoton cluster state fidelity in this protocol is above 80 the project will achieve a cluster state production rate at 5 orders of magnitude higher than the current stateoftheart devices the successful demonstration of an ondemand cluster state source is a critical step towards scalable and practical photonic quantum architecture
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