LE STUDIUM Multidisciplinary Journal
This report summarizes work conducted during a six‑month sabbatical completed in two three‑month periods during Summer 2023 and Summer 2024 as a guest fellow at Le Studium in Orléans, France. The fellowship supported an established international collaboration focused on the development of luminescent metal‑based imaging agents for infectious disease diagnostics. The primary emphasis was on fungal and mycobacterial infections, where delays in diagnosis are associated with significant morbidity and mortality. The fellow contributed clinical infectious diseases expertise, regulatory perspective, and translational guidance to ensure alignment with potential clinical application. The fellowship enabled continued research progress, international dissemination of results, and strengthening of long‑term collaborative partnerships.
The ongoing acceleration of climatic change makes it even more urgent to understand how tree seed sources (provenances) respond when growing in climates different from those they are naturally adapted to, either when planted on warmer or on colder sites than the climate that occur at their native distribution site. We evaluated four years of growth, bud phenology and survival of a Larix decidua clonal elevational reciprocal transplant trial in the French Alps, at Villard-St-Pancrace, close to Briançon (LN 44.9°; LE 6.65°). The experiment has four experimental sites, distributed along a north-faced Alpine steep-slope, at contrasting elevations: 2,400, 2,000, 1,700 and 1,350 m a.s.l. On each site, 4 sets of 30 clones were reciprocally planted, with each set originating from adult trees selected in natural forest plots at nearly the same elevations (2,300, 2,000, 1,700 and 1,350 m a.s.l). Results indicate that: (a) Plot populations have lower survival rates when relocated to environmental extremes within the mountain range, whether to colder sites at higher elevations or to warmer sites at lower elevations. (b) Growth also decreases when they are moved to colder (higher elevation) sites, although in general it increases when they are moved to warmer (lower elevation) sites. (c) Such growth pattern might be in part explained by the phenology of the leader bud elongation: by the end of spring, leader buds have already started to elongate at lower elevations, meanwhile they are still in full dormancy at the highest elevational site.
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This report presents the study based on the hypothesis that integrating rural development into urban planning as a tool for environmental protection aids to reduce the industrialization that causes climate changes. The integration of urban and rural developments into a territorial plan is not only possible but necessary to help the implementation of the SDGs. Applying the methods of bibliographic review, survey research with urban planners, and study case, the project aims to (a) make a comparative analysis of the territorial planning systems in France and Brazil (b) investigate into how the Lefebvre’s “right to the city” can be made applicable to individuals living in peri-urban and rural areas and (c) analyses the Loire Parliament initiative and the “Opération Grand Site”. The study shows the role of international agendas for urban planning and sustainability, the importance of the concepts of urban and rural, that are different but not opposites, and the necessity of investing in urban services for small and medium cities. |
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This exploratory research project has highlighted the potential of the livres de raison as privileged sources for understanding the impact of the macro-historical transformations from late-medieval to early modern society on the daily lives of the literate middle classes. Methodologically, the project has made the case for an approach that conceptualises the changes in the functions and format of the livres as the authors’ responses to the sociocultural pressures of a transformed society. While statistical analysis is complicated by the difficulty of defining the livres de raison, a good many sixteenth-century livres are at once more concerned with the memorialisation of family events and less concerned with lists of assets, revenues, and expenses. These twined developments amount to a repurposing of the traditional register defined by the late fourteenth century by its mix of notes on household business and family events into a record bearing a closer resemblance to family chronicle. These developments can be explained as responses to two major historical changes. First, the progress of pragmatic literacy and growing access to notaries led to the growth and diversification of accounting records. In this novel documentary environment, the single register in which the pater familias kept track of patrimony and business transactions (occasionally recording other consequential information as well) was largely obsolete. Second, with mounting socioeconomic pressures associated with a changing society and upward mobility, town notables began to use the livre de raison – now liberated of its duty as an accounting book – as a repository of family history, in an effort to shift the economic competition against upstarts on the more favourable terrain of prestige and cultural capital. Knowledge of the illustrious family line and prestigious matrimonial alliances could thus be preserved with a view to informing participation to public life. |
Muscle loss (atrophy) and fatty infiltration of muscle (myosteatosis) are prevalent in people with cancer and are exacerbated during chemotherapy treatment. Each of these features are independently prognostic for survival in cancer patients. Ongoing work in the applicant’s laboratory has revealed an improvement in tumor response and reduced muscle loss when eicosapentaenoic acid (20:5n-3; EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (22:6n-3; DHA) were provided to patients and in a pre-clinical model (rodents) undergoing cytotoxic treatment for cancer. The objective of this research is to develop an in vitro model to determine mechanisms by which EPA+DHA act on the mitochondria to protect muscle from development of atrophy and myosteatosis during exposure to chemotherapy. Human skeletal muscle cells are cultured with and without exposure to chemotherapeutic agents to establish the timeline and characteristics of myosteatosis. Cells cultured with or without EPA+DHA (at physiological levels) will be compared for triglyceride-fatty acid content, lipid droplet content and size, mitochondrial number, oxidative capacity and function. This information is required to develop or refine therapeutics directed at muscle wasting in cancer patients and contributes to collaborative efforts focused on improving prognosis of cancer patients.
Mechanical thrombectomy (MT) is the highly effective standard of care for acute ischemic stroke with large vessel occlusion. However, up to 50% of patients experience "futile recanalization," where successful macrovascular recanalization does not translate into functional recovery. To assess the reperfusion status of treated patients the implementation of a functional FP-CTP acquisition and post-processing was established in order to evaluate patients’ reperfusion status directly in the operating room. Within the scope of a multi-center project using this processing, we were able to show that perfusion imaging can distinguish different reperfusion phenotypes in treated patients, which can be used to stratify patients for further interventional or medical treatments in the acute stroke phase. We were able to show that acute acquisition is feasible, an immediately available post-processing algorithm can provide perfusion maps comparable to standard perfusion modalities and that these maps help to define the reperfusion status of patients in more detail than standard techniques.
Plants are exposed to multiple stressors simultaneously, but can receive help deterring biotic stressors from belowground mutualists such as arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. Previous research has identified that this “help” occurs primarily via enhanced direct defences against chewing herbivores. However, our preliminary data had suggested that AM fungi promote indirect defenses against sucking herbivores like aphids. Here we tested this premise in tomato. We exposed plants to colonization by AM fungi or not, and herbivory by potato aphids or not. We then measured plant biomass as well as changes in volatile organic chemistry over time, and attraction to plants within our treatments by parasitoids in wind tunnel trials. While analyses are ongoing, we found an influence of AM fungi on plant biomass and a trend toward greater attraction of parasitoids to plants hosting AM fungi. Surprisingly we found no impact of aphid herbivores on the attraction of their parasitoids, and no interaction between AM fungi and aphid herbivory on parasitoid attraction. This suggests that AM fungi do, as we hypothesized, promote indirect defences of plants.
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The project aims to contribute to the improvement of methods for determining key properties in the evolution of gas and liquid corrosion of refractory products. In particular, the project proposes to develop in-lab methods to measure transport properties at high temperature, specifically, the intrinsic permeability and the capillary suction properties, which are not available in the present time. As the first step, a deeper comprehension of the factors controlling the materials’ transport properties at room temperature, such as the porosity characteristics, are required in order to advance to the adaptation of the methodologies for measuring the properties under high temperature conditions. The tasks carried out during the staying at CEMHTI were aligned with the original plan and will continue during the following months to achieve the proposed aims. Non-commercial as-received and heat-treated MgO-C refractories, previously studied at INTEMA, were tested. On the other hand, the high temperature properties of molten steelmaking slags were measured using the aerodynamic levitation technique. In addition, a new thermodynamic simulation model to study the graphite oxidation of oxide-C refractories was also developed and applied. |
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Achieving the European Green Deal objectives and global net-zero targets requires rapid decarbonization of the transport sector, which remains a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions. While electrification is expanding, long vehicle lifecycles and infrastructure limitations necessitate complementary low-carbon solutions that can be integrated into existing engine platforms. Ammonia (NH₃) is emerging as a strategic zero-carbon energy carrier because it contains no carbon, can be produced from renewable electricity, and benefits from established global storage and distribution infrastructure. However, its slow ignition and poor combustion reactivity limit direct application in internal combustion engines. This research evaluates the use of small quantities of dimethyl ether (DME) as an ignition promoter to enable stable and efficient ammonia combustion under multiple operating modes. The results demonstrate that minimal DME addition significantly enhances ignition reliability, combustion stability, and efficiency while maintaining low carbon emissions. By enabling the use of ammonia in existing engine technologies, this work supports near-term emission reduction strategies, strengthens energy security by reducing fossil fuel dependence, and contributes to Indo-French scientific collaboration aligned with European climate and innovation policies. |
Self-assembly of polymer materials provides a cost-effective route to preparation of materials with well-defined nanostructures (1-100 nm). Due to their ability to self-assemble, block copolymers are a particularly useful and important class of materials utilized in a wide range of applications including photonic crystals, ion conducting membranes, microfluidics, drug delivery, sensors, and nanoporous membranes, and templates for the organization of nanodots and nanowires. However, relationships between block copolymer chemistry, architecture, and thermodynamics are critical for understanding self-assembly behavior towards designing materials with target properties. This research investigated the impact of incorporation of a gradient copolymer within the block copolymer architecture for enabling additional control over self-assembly behavior in polymer thin films and how these polymer thin films can be leveraged to fabricate porous thin polymer films. Block and and block-gradient copolymers were synthesized with controlled molecular size and gradient structure and their thin film structures evaluated using atomic force microscopy towards understanding relationships between the macromolecular structure and formed morphologies in thin films.