What does the study of music look like in an age of ubiquitous data? How have we collected and categorized music, in all its richness? And how can digital tools help us understand musical style and structure, particularly when it comes to the music of the distant past? As my host Philippe Vendrix explains in the introduction to EarlyMuse (https://earlymuse.eu/; a major European Cooperation in Science and Technology [COST] project), the field of early music has always been marked by hybridity: a meeting ground of theory and practice, of scholarship and performance, of the material and the immaterial. Now the digital turn in scholarship, and the central place of digital media in culture more broadly, bring new opportunities and challenges to this mix.
The experimental basis of my project, briefly stated, is to find ways to advance two key axes—one technical, the other social. Thus, one portion of my work will focus on “music as data” and “data about music” at both micro and macro levels of detail. During this phase of work, I will advance techniques for the curation of quality data, the development of algorithms and machine learning systems for music, and the elaboration of systems for mapping and linking knowledge.  But I will also help seasoned professionals and aspiring graduate students alike direct this kind of “applied human intelligence” to the machine tools that increasingly mediate our experience with all forms of culture, and that shape knowledge systems, too. If musicology is to succeed in a digital age, we will need to involve digital natives in this work. And if young musicologists are to succeed in the rapidly changing landscape of the academy and culture industry more broadly, they will need to hone digital skills early in their careers

A rapidly rotating system of strongly interacting matter at high temperature and density has been created and observed in relativistic heavy-ion collision experiments. However, the theoretical framework for describing the dynamical evolution of spin degrees of freedom still requires further development. In this research project, we have formulated a thermodynamic system in which spin is introduced as an external environmental parameter, and we have investigated the thermal properties induced by spin. We have discovered that the spin carried by gauge particles is closely related to the topological current in the gauge sector, opening a novel direction for exploring the nonperturbative nature of hot and dense matter.

 The Moon is a cornerstone for understanding the early history (origin, budget and timing) of volatile elements (H, C, F, S, Cl) delivered to all terrestrial planets. The volatile study of lunar magmatism is the most direct way to reconstruct the volatile budget of the Moon’s interior.  However, this reconstruction is compromised by magmatic processes that modify the initial compositions of the lunar magmas. The final goal of our work is to determine how sulfide saturation and segregation in all the compositional range of lunar lavas have affected the sulfur isotopic composition of the magmas. The determined sulfur isotopic fractionation between lunar silicate melts and immiscible sulfide blebs will allow us to directly unravel the sulfur isotopic composition of the heterogeneous reservoirs forming the Moon’s interior, and therefore, provide fundamental information on the early evolution of sulfur isotopes of the Earth’s satellite. 

The goal of the research was to map Chinese investments in Loire Valley viticulture and its links with lifestyle migration. The research showed that despite the overall rise of lifestyle migration from China to Europe, Chinese investment in Loire Valley viticulture is very limited. This is because, while Chinese investment in Bordeaux wineries has declined, its principal drivers were high-end prestige investments and for-profit ventures, for which the Loire Valley, unlike Burgundy, is not an attractive alternative. Contrary to expectations, middle-class investors attracted by the “European lifestyle” associated with vineyard ownership appear to be a small group among Bordeaux investors and are currently struggling with the crisis afflicting Bordeaux wine production.

Mineral reactions in subsurface energy systems result in deviations from local equilibriums and can impact critical engineering properties of the system, including storage capacity (porosity) and injectivity (permeability). Accurate understanding and prediction of reaction rates and impacts on formation properties is needed for safe and efficient design and implementation of these engineered systems. Precise simulation of mineral reaction rates is limited by a poor understanding of the mineral reactive surface area in porous media. Here, pore scale numerical simulations are leveraged to simulate mineral reactions for varied flow and reaction conditions and the effective surface area analyzed. Numerical simulations of reactions in a porous media mesh are carried out in OpenFOAM® and a new scaling factor, relating the effective surface area to the accessible surface area, determined.

The work presented is a report on a research stay as part of LE STUDIUM for visiting researchers from September 1 to November 30, 2025, at the Laboratory of Physics and Chemistry of the Environment and Space (LPC2E) of the CNRS in Orléans. This is a research stay whose objective is to apply an in-depth methodology for the microphysical, optical, and radiative characterization of aerosols at the surface and at altitude. This technique is based on in situ measurements taken by the LOAC instrument during flights using weather balloons, climate model simulations, and data from airborne and satellite sensors. This enabled us to understand the measurement methodology using the LOAC instrument, which has already been tested by the CNRS's LPC2E, and aerosol modeling using ECSM2 model simulations. Based on the measurement campaigns carried out, we analyzed the aerosol profile as well as that of PM1, PM2.5, and PM10, and the volume size distribution of the particles. Also, based on aerosol extinction evaluated using the Mie code, we were able to determine the aerosol optical depth (AOD), which is an integration of the extinction coefficient across the atmospheric layer. In addition, this trip was an opportunity to participate in a validation study of the ATLID lidar aboard the EarthCare satellite, which has been in orbit since May 2024. This has enabled us to learn a new approach to the optical and microphysical characterization of aerosols that can be applied in Burkina Faso and West Africa in general.

The booming field of diffusion chronometry allows geoscientists to extract the timing and duration of subsurface magmatic processes that occur prior to volcanic eruptions. The technique relies on modeling step-wise, concentric chemical gradients that form within magmatic minerals as they grow or get perturbed by new incoming magma prior to volcanic unrest. These chemical ‘tree rings’ are smeared with time by element diffusion, so that the amount of time between perturbation and eruption can be recovered if the mobility (diffusivity) of elements is calibrated in the lab at magma temperatures. This project aims to resolve recently uncovered discrepancies between widely-used element diffusivities obtained in simplified systems (e.g., mineral-mineral couples) and those obtained in melt bearing systems (mineral-melt couples). The new experiments carried out during a STUDIUM-supported sabbatical in 2024-2025 confirmed that the presence of melt is responsible for important differences in element mobilities for olivine, perhaps via the presence of H2O. Diffusivities in plagioclase, by contrast, are not influenced by melt or H2O, implying that current community practices are robust. The underlying mechanisms by which these differences in element behavior appear are still being investigated, and new tools recently tested (hyperspectral cathodoluminescence) may hold important clues as to the presence and distribution of point defects in these minerals. 

If undercover police incite someone to break the law, to make an arrest, this is state entrapment. If a private citizen incites someone to break the law, to report them, we have private entrapment. State entrapment usually compromises prosecution. Private entrapment usually does not. The police and the courts respond to it in disparate, unpredictable ways. The research project is primarily interested in state entrapment; private entrapment is of secondary interest. The focus is on three questions: definition; permissibility; implications. Rather than stemming from innocuous conventional differences, disagreements about entrapment are at heart philosophical conflicts. Philosophy has a key role to play in deepening our understanding of the assumptions that underlie debates about entrapment, the concept of entrapment, and the ethics of entrapment. This project is the first sustained, comprehensive, and specifically philosophical study of the topic. During the research stay at Tours, one chapter of a forthcoming book (Oxford) was written.

Follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) and luteinizing hormones (LH), the gonadotropins are the regulators of follicle growth, ovulation, and oocyte maturation. An imbalance in their levels or activity is known to cause subfertility or infertility, especially in women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). In many of these women, LH levels are high along with untimely LH receptor (LHR) expression in granulosa cells in the follicular phase of menstrual cycles. Here, we demonstrate that high LHR activity due to high LH stimulate abnormal cAMP levels. The interaction between FSHR and IRS proteins (IRS-1 or IRS-2) is altered due to high LH/LHR expression/activity. This study demonstrates novel therapeutic targets in women with PCOS. The inhibition of high LHR activity with antagonistic peptides or LHR specific nanobodies would pave a way towards management of hormonal imbalance in women with PCOS.

Larix decidua, the European larch, is an excellent model to evaluate the association between genetic and phenotypic variation with environmental gradients in forest species. In the present work we evaluated the genetic variation of neutral and selective SNP markers together with the variation of eight quantitative traits along an altitudinal gradient in a natural population of this species located in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Region (France). Four samples of about 200 trees each were obtained respectively from plots situated at 1350, 1700, 2000, and 2300 m above sea level. In each sampled individual four tree ring variables and four plasticity variables were evaluated. The molecular dataset consisted of the individual patterns of 46388 SNP loci. The joint analysis of molecular and quantitative trait data allowed evaluating population structure, detecting presumptively selective loci, and demonstrating the adaptive significance of the quantitative variables considered.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.