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Many industrial processes like coal combustion, catalytic craking, gas phase polymerization reactors, and more recently, biomass gasification and chemical looping involve two-phase reactive flows in which the continuous phase is a fluid and the dispersed one comprises rigid particles. Improving both the design and the operating conditions of these processes represents a major scientific and industrial challenge in a context of markedly rising energy cost and sustainable development (MORE control 4 LESS environmental footprint). Thus, it is above all important to better understand the coupling of hydrodynamic, chemical and thermal phenomena in those flows in order to be able to predict them reliably . The aim of MORE4LESS is to build up a multi-scale modelling approach of reactive particulate flows and to focus on the development of what we consider to be the weakest link, i.e. the mesoscopic scale Euler/Lagrange model with heat transfer and chemical reactions for particle-laden flows in dense and dilute regimes. This new modelling will be implemented in a massively parallel numerical code that will enable us to take a step towards the enhanced design of semi-industrial processes.

Global change scenarios are invaluable to guide long-term strategic policies, prompt management actions and increase public awareness of future trends in biodiversity. Although the degree of realism of scenarios and marine ecosystem models developed in support of an ecosystem approach to fisheries has greatly improved, in most cases, the Darwinian evolution of fish populations is still neglected in future projections. Evidence indicates that populations adapt to global change, either via phenotypic plasticity or genetic processes, leading to modifications in their life-history and physiology. Such adaptation can mitigate the impacts of global change on fish populations and prevent their extirpation, an evolutionary rescue, but it can also push them towards evolutionary traps due to the erosion of their genetic diversity and thus reduction of their evolutionary potential and resilience. SOMBEE addresses the role of eco-evolutionary dynamics and their consequences for the sustainable exploitation of fish resources in the future. To this end, we will build and test scenarios of the combined pressure of fishing and climate change on both intra- and inter-specific marine biodiversity, by explicitly modelling the phenotypic plasticity of fish life-history traits, their selection and adaptive evolution, and their genetic drift for multiple interacting species. The objectives are to: i) develop a cutting edge evolutionary ecosystem model with primary focus on fish; ii) apply it to a set of 6 contrasting ecosystems to better understand the selective pressures exerted by fishing and climate change; iii) project future changes in intra- and inter-specific biodiversity and related fishing production and economic profit under combined climate and fishing scenarios and iv) quantify the synergistic and antagonistic ecological, evolutionary and economic impacts of these drivers. SOMBEE will advance knowledge on the capacity of fish communities to adapt to global change and our ability to forecast their persistence and the future sustainability of fisheries and food production.

There are urgent environmental and economic imperatives to develop renewable sources of energy for heat, electricity and transport fuels. Bioenergy in the form of biomass and biofuels, will constitute an increasingly important component for sustainable energy only if their production does not compromise land use for food production and that an ecological and carbon neutrality is assured. For liquid transportation fuels, biodiesel derived from the triacylglycerols of oilseed crops is preferred over starch or sugar-derived ethanol because of its greater energy density per volume and more efficient energy conversion of feedstocks. A barrier to a more widespread adoption of biodiesel is associated with the cost and limited supply of seed oils. Therefore, to alleviate the problem of an increased demand for vegetable oil production for nutritional, industrial and biodiesel uses it is essential to improve oilseed yields. One approach to enhancing oil yield would be to alter the partitioning of carbon in seeds to favour the synthesis of triacylglycerol over storage protein and other seed components. Such an approach requires knowledge of the genetic determinants governing seed development and reserve accumulation in seeds. The aim of the SYNERGY project is to investigate the extent to which carbon can be re-directed from structural and other reserve components of the seed to triacylglycerol in order to enhance oil yield in a model oilseed plant combined with the perspective to translate this knowledge to emerging non-food crop platforms which are performant on marginal land. The specific objectives are to identify and characterise novel transcriptional regulators of seed oil synthesis and assess their ability to influence carbon partitioning between oil and protein. Secondly, elucidate gene regulatory networks controlling specific metabolic pathways in the seed coat and to determine the extent to which altering metabolism in the seed coat alters the metabolic fate of carbon assimilate during seed development. By isolating and characterising transcription factors that control the expression of acyltransferases essential for triacylglycerol synthesis in seeds, the SYNERGY project will address our lack of knowledge of the regulation of the genes that control triacylglycerol assembly. The genetic screens employed will lead to the identification of factors that will include novel transcriptional regulators, co-regulators and repressors that control both the production of fatty acids destined for TAG assembly and those that control seed storage protein synthesis. Genetic dissection of the gene regulatory network controlling the expression of the high seed oil mutant glabra2 will lead to an understanding as to the transcriptional control of the pathway of mucilage synthesis in the seed coat and insight to the signalling of carbon repartition to lipid synthesis in the embryo during development. With this knowledge we will be in a unique position to test the engineering of seed oil content by re-directing carbon flow from diverse metabolic products of the seed. Candidate genes anticipated to be of interest for increasing seed oil content will be transferred to Camelina sativa. The translational biology component of the project adds value to the fundamental research that underpins SYNERGY programme since it will represent a validation of this emerging industrial crop platform. In conclusion, we expect to identify novel regulators of fatty acid modification, triacylglycerol assembly and storage protein synthesis and we expect to elucidate the influence of seed coat expressed factors AP2, TTG1, TTG2 and GL2 and their relations with FUS3 on oil synthesis in embryo. We anticipate that knowledge acquired during the SYNERGY project will lead to the development of novel oilseed platforms engineered for enhanced seed oil content.

Franco-Quebec collaboration within the framework of the project ArchXant is the natural continuum of a fertile scientific association introduced in 2000, in Turkey. ArchXant intends to answer challenges represented by collection, indexation, preservation, exploitation and launch of the open access archives of a defunct archaeological mission (Xanthos-Letoon), but whose research activities and publication are called to carry on numerous years. So is the project at the heart of new problems which faces today the world of archaeologists and epigraphists: for the sake of future research how should one protect the fragile archaeological archives and incunabula? How should one guarantee the scientific value of knowledges promised to a wide dissemination? Which interactive methods could be designed to share these knowledges with the largest number? How to keep digitized datas also called Big Data? ArchXant will lead to the creation of an internet platform dedicated both to the digital archiving of the excavation documentation and to its diffusion, from the private circle of specialists to the greater public. A friendly environment will offer to the researchers and to the students publications and digital databases completed with critical comments of archives. The use of 3D technologies will allow to offer modellings of buildings assisted by interactive educational tools (e.g. the Nereid Monument), just like 3D digitalizations of squeezes allowing, furthermore, the not intrusive use of the XIXth century samples. This project joins in the most current trend of archaeological researches in the Mediterranean area, a region of unequalled cultural wealth, but troubled by ceaseless conflicts. In the heart of concerns of big bodies dedicated to the protection of world heritage such as the UNESCO, of which Xanthos is one of the sites, the ArchXant project offers resolutely forward-looking solutions to problems which affects the past. The training of the academic succession, another major challenge in our disciplines, will be made through the supervision of young MA and PhD researchers in what constitutes best practice in humanities and social sciences today. Finally, the hosting of ArchXant by the TGIR HumaNum will guarantee the sustainability of the project, both from the point of view of data preservation and of their dissemination.

The economic crisis notably generated by COVID-19 and the rise of populism in Europe has had many social and legal impacts, in particular, on the rule of law, on human rights and on the European human rights justice including litigation before the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union (‘the European Courts’). A small but growing number of studies have investigated how European interest groups have used legal opportunities in preference to other advocacy tactics. However, compared to their American counterparts, no systematic comparative work has been done on the litigation by these European interest groups, especially the conservative interest groups which promote Christian and traditional values through litigation. Therefore, the main purpose of the Just_Moral Project is to analyse the growing influence of non-governmental organisations and private foundations on the European Courts. In particular, the project will investigate the litigation undertaken by conservative and liberal groups, to demonstrate their both partial cognitive and moral influence. The Just_Moral Project will investigate these questions and the ways in which these private interest groups try to influence the European human-rights justice systems using doctrinal, judicial, political and financial tactics. Thanks to a socio-legal and historical methodology (including an empirical enquiry), the Moral_Project will aim to show that these private interest groups behave not as philanthropists, but rather as ‘moral entrepreneurs of justice and jurisprudence’ who are trying to frame and orient the European human-rights justice system to promote their own values, as they already do in the US. While liberal groups aim to promote open and liberal societies, individual freedoms, minority rights and liberal governments, conservative groups orient their efforts to enhance traditional Christian values and promote populist governments.