The explosion that hit Beirut on 04.08.2020 had a devastating effect on the city and its inhabitants. The material and immaterial damage of such an event requires an unimaginable effort to recover acceptable living conditions. In the recovery process, actions aimed at the restoration and care of the cultural heritage can play a fundamental role in giving life and dignity back to a displaced population.
The project aims to enhance interdisciplinary collaboration, creating an international network for the care of cultural heritage and it will develop new methods, techniques and approaches, know-how and skills, to support disaster recovering (from emergency intervention to preservation and restoration) and for promoting awareness of the values of cultural heritage among local people. It will shape new professionals and ensure the continuity of traditional craftsmanship, contributing to rebuild a sense of place.
The project, led by prof. Giacinta Jean from the Conservation-Restoration unit of SUPSI, will be developed in strong collaboration with dr. Yasmine Makaroun, Director of the Center of Restoration and Conservation, Faculty of Fines Arts and Architecture, Lebanese University; prof. Joseph Zaarour, Head of Conservation Restoration of Cultural Property Program, Holy Spirit University Kaslik; prof. Nayla Tamraz, Director of the Master and Ph.D. program in curatorial studies, University of Saint-Joseph, the Swiss Embassy and the Restart Beirut Fonds.

Tunisia’s mining history goes back to the Roman period and was heavily expanded during the 19th century before economic constraints forced many mines to close during the 1990’s. These abandoned mines represent a historical heritage which is yet only poorly recognized. Here, we propose to document this unique patrimony by integrating historical information with modern 3D topographic surveys using light-weight lidar technology at Djebel Serdj, where several old mines are documented next to Tunisian’s most extensive speleological networks. The latter host some large chambers which extent can only hardly be assessed without detailed surveys. Results of this acquisition will support spatial analysis of geomorphological features as well as contribute to a better understanding of lead-zinc ore deposits with respect to karst processes. But overall, the 3D visualization of these complex networks will support scientific mediation efforts to protect this unique geological patrimony.

Industry 4.0 promotes the integration of smart factories, among these, Additive Manufacturing (AM) known as 3D printing technologies which are considered one of the most promising technologies in the transformation towards the digitalization of the industry, generating huge interest in several sectors such aerospace, automobile and biomedical. However, there are technical challenges related to the reproducibility and the quality monitoring, to bring these recent technologies onto the production lines.
The overarching goal must therefore be the integration and the dissemination of reliable AM technologies into engineering teaching, and to bring more scientific comprehension of the process. To that end, this project fosters synergies between the skills provided by the two academic institutions (HEI Valais-Switzerland and UTM/ENIT-Tunisia) to develop a collaborative framework for effective education of a reliable metal AM technologies based on the combination of both virtual and physical prototyping, respectively through the development of numerical predictive models, and printing tangible 3D samples. This approach aims to characterize the achievement of an AM part considering its qualification criteria.
This will help future engineers, master students, PhD candidates and researchers to develop skills in common processing equipment based on scientific concepts and to be immersed in an innovative technology allowing a flexible integration of the metal AM toward the industry4.0.

Imagine pain in a non-existing body part! Belonging to the daily life of most amputees, phantom pain is yet refractory to available treatments, most patients showing minimal if none persistent improvements.
The project will bring scientific proof to previous clinical outcomes that neuro-psychomotor therapy reduces and even alleviates pain. Research will be held in Lebanon linking both a high potential of medical values with a large community of amputees. 20 amputees suffering from chronic phantom pain will receive either neuro-psychomotor or physiotherapy over 36 sessions. A randomized, controlled, test-retest protocol will investigate changes in the level of pain and in neural plasticity reorganization (MRI + somatotopic map) before, at the end of therapy and 4 months later.
Significant differences in pain level and in brain reorganization will be expected between the two groups indicating that global restructuration of amputees’ disturbed body schema driven by the neuro-psychomotor therapy may be a straightforward remedy offering a novel non-pharmacological/surgical treatment of phantom pain.
This project will bring empowerment and sustainability to both countries on the level of phantom pain treatment and professionals’ education in the neuro-psychomotor therapy. It will also give new understanding of neuropathic pain by exploring the links between phantom pain and body schema, opening new insights to other clinical populations (paraplegic, stroke, neuroalgodystrophia).

Almost one out of ten Swiss aged over 65 lives with diabetes. In Kuwait, the prevalence over one out of six adults aged 60-69. Diabetes carries a high health and economic burden: for canton Vaud, the health costs range between 170 and 250 million CHF per year. In Kuwait, the estimated cost of treating diabetes is over $1,000 a year per individual per year. Further, almost half of patients with diabetes are inadequately managed in Switzerland, while in Kuwait the rate is almost two thirds. The reasons making a subject with diabetes being inadequately managed are poorly understood; recently, the effect of an unfavourable genetic profile has been put forward, but whether such profile can be used in clinical practice is unknown. Our project thus aims at assessing

1. The awareness, treatment and control rates of diabetes in Switzerland and Kuwait
2. The clinical and behavioural factors associated with awareness and treatment of diabetes in Switzerland and Kuwait
3. The clinical, behavioural and genetic factors associated with control of diabetes in Switzerland
   We will use data from the CoLau|PsyCoLaus study in Switzerland and the Kuwait National Diabetes Registry in Kuwait. The data is available and approval from the corresponding Ethic Committees has been obtained, the study can be conducted easily. The project duration is 12 months. We expect to foster collaboration between the Lausanne University Hospital and the Dasman Diabetes Institute regarding the research on diabetes.

Open Science has been institutionalised in Switzerland in the past years, in-line with Swissuniversities, the European Commission’s, OECD, and UNESCO recommendations (EuropeanCommission, 2020; OECD, 2021; Swissuniversities, No date; UNESCO, 2021). Policies and support exist at national and institutional levels to guide the different stakeholders (e.g. Universite-de-Genève, 2020). In contrast, for Open Education, Switzerland does not have any national policy yet but several initiatives around the topic are flourishing throughout the country (e.g. ZWAH institutional OER policy, Digital academy skills, Swiss OE day, UNIGE-HES-SO mandate, SNSF scientific exchange).
In the MENA region, the movement is rather the opposite. Open Education has been well developed through several international projects supported by the European Commission, ALECSO and different organisations (e.g. ALECSO, 2019; OERWiki@MENA, 2021; OpenBookProject, 2014; OpenMed, 2015; UNIMED, 2018) with growing OERs libraries and national and institutional policies in the making (e.g. OpenMed, 2016). Open Science though is still in its infancy.
Within this project, we will build on each other’s expertise in terms of Open Science and Open Education to educate scholars of the Swiss-MENA region to the Open paradigm. Indeed, the ultimate goal of this research project is to create a pool of scholars from the 5 countries involved (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt and Switzerland) who deeply understand the Open paradigm and act as catalysts and disseminators with the backdrop of an international network of Open scholars. We argue that this is a Swiss-Mediterranean contribution to the building of the collective intelligence needed to craft the knowledge society (Innerarity, 2015).
To reach this goal, within an overall design-based research approach (McKenney & Reeves, 2019), stakeholders will crossbreed their expertise to i) identify respective institutional and if possible national policies towards distance education, Open Education and Open Science, ii) identify a list of competences for the XXIst century Open Scholar to lay the ground for a competences framework; iii) based on existing open material, design a training and identify features for a suited professional development environment for the Open Scholar; iv) work towards a consistent research project focused on a) prioritising research topics for an Open paradigm in the Swiss-MENA region, b) consolidating / extending the network of international Open scholars, and c) developing the training and professional development environment, from the design phase realised in this project.

Plasticycle started as student project on the topic of plastic recycling at USEK in Lebanon. Through SMECEYI first contacts with Swiss UAS were established. With this project we propose to use technical exchanges to define and initiate cooperation between USEK Lebanon & HES-SO Fribourg and OST Rapperswil to launch joint research projects & student exchanges in the field of plastic/chemical engineering and to expand and strengthen the network within circular plastic economy.

The global community is debating, arguing, negotiating, and slowly developing approaches to reduce CO2 emissions and to increase renewable energy use. Progress requires overcoming the complex problem of balancing technology, investments, and social interests. How can the handling of this challenging problem be understood and disseminated?

Educational games have demonstrated great potential for informing students, policymakers, and the general public on environmental resources and societal issues. Evidence has been obtained using the online game Sarnetz.ch. The tool is based on a physical version developed by ETH, as part of Energia 2020, and has been exposed to students by HSLU in Switzerland and abroad, as part of the Expo’s in Japan, Kazakhstan, and Dubai. It was found that further engagement to reduce CO2 emissions requires suitable measures for the geographical region of interest.

In this project, HSLU together with NYUAD intends to investigate the feasibility of transforming Sarnetz.ch for the Middle East Region by gathering the relevant data necessary to adapt the online educational environmental game specific to the environment and needs of communities in Abu Dhabi, the UAE, and the GCC. With this collaboration, local knowledge and competence is added to the academic excellence with access to key stakeholders to also investigate funding sources and connect with funding bodies to develop the game in future projects using the knowledge gained in this work.

The ubiquity of concrete in the built environment poses serious environmental concerns. Ordinary Portland cement (PC), the main binding agent in concrete, is manufactured from limestone (CaCO3), which decomposes and releases CO2 during an energy-intensive calcination stage as part of the production process. The cement industry emits approximately 3.2 billion tonnes of CO2, accounting for approximately 7-8 % of the total global anthropogenic CO2 emission [1, 2]. Over the past years, partial replacement of PC by supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) such as ground granulated blast furnace slag from steel production plants, fly ash from coal power plants [3-5], or natural pozzolans [6, 7] has been successfully implemented to help reduce the CO2 emissions from the industry. However, geographical constraints, a shift from coal to cleaner energy sources, and increased recycling of steel raise concerns about their long-term availability [8]. A combination of limestone powder and calcined clay as PC replacement (LC3) was shown to bring about a synergistic effect, leading to an enhancement of the composite performance [9, 10] and a significant reduction in the environmental footprint relative to the PC [11, 12]. Even though the geology of the Middle East region does not appear propitious to finding suitable clays, our preliminary studies revealed the existence of clays with limited reactivity and potentials for incorporation in LC3 formulations. The main objective of the proposed study is to identify and assess the properties and commercial viability of local clays for LC3 implementation to contribute to decarbonizing the cement industry in the AUE. We will focus on the identification of sources of potential clays, their performance assessment, and incorporation in concrete. In addition to geological survey and sampling, a series of comprehensive characterization techniques will be performed and will include calcination, ball milling, thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA), reactivity testing, X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray fluorescence (XRF), calorimetry, compression testing and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) will be performed. Successful identification of potential clays will stimulate interest and adoption of this sustainable binder in the UAE. reference-list_description_20211230.docx

This project investigates the preservation of cultural heritage in Palestine as a form of resistance to the Israeli settler colonialism. By showing how across decades of Israeli occupation architecture and urban planning have been used to fragment Palestinian territory, land and natural environments, the project explores the possibilities of rehabilitation (architectural, social and cultural) of the historic centers of a cluster of rural villages which have been progressively isolated – geographically, politically, economically and culturally- from Jerusalem’s urban center.
The project seeks to show how a critical understanding and re-interpretation of Palestinian architectural heritage can initiate a process of repair for the rural communities at the outskirts of Jerusalem near Lifta, Al-Jib, Qalandiya and Beit Hanina to heal the separations caused by the Separation Wall and the Israeli policies. It engages with critical research methodologies to deploy the public dimension and function of architectural heritage as a space for repair from colonially inherited forms of urban/rural segregations and their racialized, social and economic aftermaths. The project is driven by the operative concept of repair – an analytical method for probing the variety of marginalized political, cultural and social histories and narratives that exist and emerge in Palestine’s long history of colonial occupation.
In the context of Palestine, the repairing of heritage is here intended as one that addresses double ‘wounds’: the material decay suffered by buildings and sites caused by endemic deterioration processes and the destruction and violence caused by colonial destruction. To address these ‘pathologies’ this project intends to employ the concept of repair in its extended meaning, as a way to innovatively offer new narratives/practices of heritage preservation that address both physical and psycho-social needs.
In seeking to study the complexity of repair in Palestine, the project combines participatory research approaches in urban studies, conservation, architecture and heritage with theoretical study and empirical analysis. The project can be understood as both a practice of heritage-making and community-building and also a means of investigating the way repair mobilize architectural heritage for social justice in Palestine.

A field trials will be performed using the Sahara tomato cultivar in the north and south of Algeria under abiotic stresses (salt stress and heat) and using two fertilization methods (with chemical fertilization and using an organic fertilizer based on plant by-products, especially date palm residues). Then, the effect of these treatments on tomato performance and mainly on the rhizomicrobiome structures and functioning will be studied. Microbial DNA will be extracted from the rhizospheric soil of each treatment and 16S rRNA metagenomic sequencing will be established to get the microbiome profile data. The obtained data will be subject to divers’ bioinformatics tools to determine the shifts in the rhizomicrobiome community due to the treatments, to unravel the correlation between cultivation factors, to established computational models for more efficient and precision agriculture and finally to develop a few adapted rhizomicrobiome-based fertilizers. In a second part, this project also aims to train and develop the skills and expertise of the Algerian researcher in bioinformatics and microbial genomic data analysis. This small project will have a national impact on two aspects: (i) agronomic research and food security and (ii) higher education, especially for researchers and students at the National Higher School of Agronomy (ENSA).

Avec le vieillissement de la population au Nord et au Sud (ONU, 2019b), et un accroissement de la population mondiale migrante (ONU, 2019a), de plus en plus de scientifiques étudient les interactions entre la migration et le vieillissement autant dans les pays du Nord que du Sud. Plusieurs pays du sud, dont la Tunisie, connaissent une migration importante des adultes actifs sous la pression des crises économiques. Ces départs privent les personnes âgé·e·s ou au début de la retraite de l’aide et la solidarité de leurs proches à court ou moyen termes. Ce phénomène accélère l’apparition de problématiques liées au vieillissement dans des sociétés pensées comme encore jeunes et où ces enjeux ne sont prioritaire (Beaugendre et al., 2016). Nous observons également que de plus en plus de personnes à l’âge de la retraite choisissent de migrer, nous distinguons trois profils : celles circulant au sein de l’espace familial transnational pour soutenir leur enfants installés ailleurs (Nedelcu & Wyss, 2020) ; les personnes qui ont migré au début de l’âge adulte et qui, au moment de la retraite, décident, ou non, de retourner dans leur pays d’origine (Bolzman et al., 2016; Chattou et al., 2010; Labidi, 2016) ; les retraité·e·s des pays riches qui s’expatrient dans un pays dont le coût de la vie est plus bas (Bender et al., 2018; Repetti & Bolzman, 2020). Malgré une diversité des situations, la littérature montre que les parents vieillissants et leurs enfants échangent des soutiens matériels, économiques et de care (Mahfoudh et al., 2021; Repetti et al., 2021). Or, au cours de ces dernière années, ces échanges se sont déroulés dans un contexte d’instabilités politiques (Thiollet, 2013) et sanitaires (Lahlou, 2021).
Ce projet mobilisera des chercheurs et des étudiant·e·s afin d’explorer, en Suisse et en Tunisie, ce sujet en interrogeant : 1. dans quelle mesure et comment les soutiens matériels, économiques et de care circulent entre parents âgés et enfants adultes au sein des familles transnationales ; 2. Quelles ressources publiques, privées et de solidarité sont mobilisées pour la prise en charge des parents âgées dépendants à distance et localement. 3. Quel est l’expérience des retraité·e·s du Nord installé·e·s en Tunisie et comment organisent-ils et elles leur vie avec leurs familles à distance ?

Given the multitude of current global crises (political, social, economic, environmental, etc.), the project of a Critical Theory of society has been struck with an urgency that has stimulated a process of self-transformation and renewal. This can be recognized on two fronts: intellectual and institutional. On the one hand, the tradition has become more pluralistic in recent years, embracing a wider range of figures and theoretical and methodological approaches – including post-structuralism, pragmatism, post-colonial and gender theory, among others – thereby expanding its “cannon” and the theoretical tools at its disposal. As a result, Critical Theory is gradually becoming a more inclusive and global enterprise. On the other hand, Critical Theorists have sought to enhance the institutional scope, visibility, and profile of Critical Theory within the academy worldwide and recent political developments within the Middle East/Gulf region indicate a growing openness to inter-cultural philosophical dialogue. For example, the United Arab Emirates recently made a historical step towards a constructive dialogue with Critical Theory when it offered its most prestigious literary award – the Sheikh Zayed Book Award – to Jürgen Habermas, the Frankfurt School's leading representative.

Nevertheless, there remains much room for progress: the necessary critical dialogue with situated forms of theory and praxis emanating from developing regions – especially MENA and Africa – has not yet taken place in earnest due to the lingering Eurocentric biases of some of its predominant theoretical approaches. Indeed, the contemporary landscape in Critical Theory remains largely predominated by three paradigms: Kantian, Marxist-Hegelian, and Foucauldian-Nietzschean (genealogical). This project aims to contribute to the “globalization” of Critical Theory to overcome its lingering Eurocentrism that undermines its ability to make an effective intervention in the diagnosis and critique of the social dynamics of an increasingly globalized and multi-polar world. While retaining the inter-disciplinary and empirically informed character of the Frankfurt School tradition, the project expands the field of Critical Theory’s “learning process” by engaging with hitherto ignored or marginalized theoretical perspectives, thereby contributing to its continued evolution and dynamism.

À travers deux études de cas dans deux filières phares du secteur des produits alimentaires de terroir, dans deux pays différents (l'huile d’olive 100 % bio en Tunisie et le fromage "Tête de moine AOP" en Suisse), la présente étude vise à analyser en profondeur et comparer les pratiques stratégiques, managériales et organisationnelles relatives aux activités d’exportation adoptées par les acteurs intervenant dans les deux filières. Dans le cadre de ce projet, l’analyse comparative est un préambule à une dynamique d’échanges de bonnes pratiques entre les deux filières et à une proposition de conduite managériale pour les entreprises qui misent sur les perspectives de vente de leurs produits à l'export.

Cette collaboration tuniso-suisse va nous permettre de renforcer la collaboration entre les deux institutions en publiant dans des revues et conférences scientifiques et aider les entreprises à tonifier leurs stratégies d’exportation.

The introduction of immunotherapy, in particular immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) that release the breaks on the immune response, has significantly improved outcomes in patients suffering from various types of cancer. However, pancreatic cancer remains the seventh cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide and this novel immunotherapeutic regimen seems to have limited effects. Therefore, novel therapeutic strategies targeting tumor microenvironment (TME) are mandatory to overcome the shortages of current immunotherapeutic concepts.

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is characterized by a fibrous and hypovascularized TME resulting in oxygen-deprived tumor tissue with hypoxia-mediated effects such as increased malignant potential, modified immunity, and resistance to therapy. The presence of hypoxia deters response to ICI. Since PDAC are associated with increased tumor hypoxia, these patients have decreased survival. The restoration of normoxia through anti-hypoxic treatment might therefore prove a significant benefit for the response of such patients to ICI. Myo-inositol-trispyrophosphate (ITPP) is the first-of-its-class nontoxic agent that enhances oxygen release in hypoxia and synergizes with cytotoxic anti-cancer agents in preclinical-tumor models. So far, this reagent has not been tested in combination with ICI. This study aims at investigating ITPP in zebrafish patient avatars, which hold great potential as a quick screening tool to innovate patient treatment strategies. Herein we will first validate the application of our signature as a hypoxia biomarker in human PDAC samples. We will investigate the ability of ITPP to restore normoxia with subsequent normalization of tumor vasculature and alleviate hypoxia in PDAC zebrafish xenografts and test the response of patient-derived xenografts to ITPP. Moreover, we will determine for the first time ITPP’s efficacy in ameliorating response to ICI in PDAC mouse models. Results from this study could fuel clinical trials for ITPP and ICI combination therapy and could put forth a hypoxia biomarker that can aid in patient selection by predicting response to hypoxia-alleviating therapy, thus enhancing patient outcomes.

Favorable climatic conditions and access to fresh water have always been major controls on the survival of human populations. In the past, increased rainfall and the resultant transformation of a desertic into a green Sahara with abundant resources provided favorable conditions for the dispersal and associated genetic flow of early human populations across northern Africa and into Eurasia. On the other hand, the complex topography of northern Africa may have created refugia during desert Sahara periods or asynchronous wet periods and led to distinct evolutionary features between different human populations. The exact timing and duration of green and desert Sahara periods remain poorly documented in terrestrial paleoclimate records, as most of them are fragmentary and poorly dated. Hence, further research about early human evolution and dispersals requires accurate climate reconstructions. Here we propose to focus our efforts on high-resolution and precisely-dated speleothem records from NW Africa, a key region in the history of the human race, and an ideal location to study the interactions high-low latitude climate systems. We have access to an existing set of well-dated speleothem records that will allow us to develop the first continuous hydroclimate and ecosystem reconstruction of the last 600,000 years in NW Africa. With this project, we will:
• Determine the timing and duration of the desert and green Sahara periods over the last 600,000 years
• Test large-scale teleconnections between the Northern Hemisphere and the low-latitude African monsoon systems on orbital-millennial time scales.
• Disentangle different moisture sources that nourished North Africa during glacial and interglacial periods, and test the most common assumption that the green Sahara, and therefore the survival of early humans in this region, was solely linked to an intensification of the summer African monsoon, whereas other moisture sources are not fully considered.
• Correlate the periodical hydroclimate fluctuations of the Sahara with archaeological evidence of human occupation in the region since the Middle Stone Age. Hence, we will provide unprecedented insights on the climate context and its potential role in growing or narrowing early human populations in North Africa, with an emphasis on important human migration events, cultural/behavioral changes, and evidence of refugium networks that could have existed in the region.

Zoonosis is a contagious illness that has spread from an animal species to people. Zoonotic infections can infect humans through direct contact, as well as through food, water, or the environment. They can also be bacterial, viral, parasitic, or involve unconventional agents. Each year, zoonotic infections kill millions of people around the world. While some zoonotic diseases have been recorded or studied, others remain unidentified. A surveillance-response system that integrates human and animal health, the environment, and food production components (iSRS), known as a One Health approach, is becoming more and more in demand on a worldwide level to investigate and detect zoonotic infections that are frequently transmitted from animals, food, and the environment to humans. One Health is a collaborative, multisectoral, and transdisciplinary approach to obtaining optimal health outcomes that acknowledge the connectivity between humans, animals, and their shared environment. The inter-sectoral collaboration of numerous stakeholders in a complex health system, along with the flexibility to adapt to local demands and the current health system constraints, is a vital part of enabling the success of the One Health approach. Thus, Mapping across relevant sectors builds an understanding of a successful multi-sectoral One Health approach.
This project intends to examine and map the current zoonotic disease reporting and control, as well as cross-sectoral collaboration and structures of the ministries of health and agriculture in Palestine. Zoonotic illnesses are widespread and have a significant impact on public health. Brucellosis, salmonellosis, rabies, West Nile virus, tuberculosis, avian influenza (H5N1), and leishmaniosis were all reported and examined in Palestine, along with other illnesses. This requires reviewing and understanding the infrastructures, protocols, laws, responsibilities, activities, strategies, and initiatives of the Palestinian ministerial departments involved in zoonotic disease detection and reporting. Additionally, publicly accessible data from national government agencies will be examined, including program guidelines, yearly reports, official websites, interministerial communications, and minutes of meetings. To collect, clarify, and verify data, in-person interviews with officials, subject matter experts, and technical representatives of the ministries of health and agriculture will also be held.

Regenerative businesses aim at making a net positive impact on nature and social ecosystems around them. Regenerative hospitality organizations can be seen as the cornerstone of the destinations' sustainability; this is especially true in rural context where the growth of such businesses is intertwined with the community both at natural and social level. This project aims at creating a long lasting research partnership between EHL – Hospitality Business School and the Nature Conservation Centre of the American University of Beirut on a topic of mutual interest; the research has been designed to generate a better understanding of the role of regenerative hospitality organization in rural Lebanon and their use of digital technologies to support natural and social systems regeneration. The research team aims at disseminated a white paper based on the results of the research proposing digitally enabled regenerative hospitality organizations as one of the possible answers to the current economic and social hardship Lebanon is experiencing to support a more regenerative economic and social growth in the travel field.

Mankind is on the verge of a new and exciting space exploration era. However, the hostile space environment is known to affect both human and microbial biological and physiological processes including the musculoskeletal and immune systems. Musculoskeletal tissue is the framework of our lives, enabling us to perform daily activities, whereas the immune system is responsible for maintaining all tissues in a healthy state. It has been shown that the patient’s immune system not only plays a crucial role in fighting various pathogens but is also vital in inducing normal healing of damaged tissues. Space flights were shown to dysregulate the function of astronauts’ immune system, suppressing both the function of innate and adaptive immune cells including monocytes, T-cells and natural killer cells. This reduced responses to both dormant as well as potentially external pathogens, providing a need to study immunological phenomena under microgravity (µG) conditions.
Biofabrication technologies enable patterning of increasingly complex three-dimensional structures with hierarchical architecture, which can resemble native extracellular matrix (ECM), providing model matrices for studying biological and pathophysiological processes. Due to intrinsically different fluid and soft matter dynamics under µG, new types of bioengineering methods for generating biocompatible constructs using more fluidic channels, self-assembling molecules or using extrinsic fields (e.g. magnetic) are possible. Hence, µG may enable new kinds of biofabrication routes, which could potentially produce complex biomimetic anisotropic tissues and organoids otherwise not possible due to limitations in Earth’s gravity.
In Space ImmunoBioInks project we propose to study behavior of self-assembling peptide-based bioinks, used for modulation of immune system cells, under µG with an ultimate future goal of providing novel biofabrication tools for studies in space. The integration of supramolecular self-assembling peptides into new biofabrication pipeline omitting Earth-bound extrusion-based rheological requirements is expected to enable formation of materials with new kinds of dynamicity and molecularly designed shapes. The envisaged technology will contribute towards space bioengineering research.

Targeted radionuclide imaging and therapy becomes more and more important in oncology. The most targets highly cancer type specific. Therefore, a pan-cancer radiopharmaceutical would be highly beneficial. The extracellular matrix which is rearranged similar in the different cancer would be a favorable target. Tenascin-C a protein of the extracellular matrix is overexpressed in different cancer tissues and a promising target. The group of the Pasteur Institute in Tunis has developed highly specific nanobodies for targeting tenascin-C. Paul Scherrer Institut developed a stable radiolabeling method of His-tags of proteins with Tc-99m-carbonyl. Tc-99m is an ideal and often used SPECT radionuclide. The method will be applied to the his-tagged-nanobodies. We expect to achieve a good radiotracer which can be evaluated for a proof of concept in vitro and in vivo. Therefore, the method will be established by a scientific visitor from the Pasteur Institute at PSI and transfer the knowledge to Tunis where the in vitro and in vivo experiments will e performed.
If it works, also first clinical application would be taken into account. The long-term aim is to further develop the nanobodies for radionuclide targeted imaging and therapy.

The pressure to reach carbon-neutral power grids in near future is pushing toward the rapid escalation of renewable energy sources in the electrical grid. Although environmental problems tell us that this is the way forward, the technical issues that these abrupt changes entailed indicate that we may not be fully ready. This has recently become evident in the European system, where, although it did not collapse, in 2021, three major events occurred. The operation of large interconnected electrical networks, such as in central Europe, is becoming even more challenging. Electrical systems are working close to their operational limits, and the energy transitions are not even close to being fully implemented. In addition, the digitalization of energy systems is equipping electrical systems with sophisticated measurement equipment that has changed the way they communicate their data, from copper wires to fiber optics and Ethernet. For this reason, technological advances should not only concentrate on solving the problems of how to improve the system security with respect to the integration of renewables but also on preventing the cyber security of the system from being affected. In this project, the research groups of ZHAW and KAUST are joining forces and competencies, to develop strategies based on data-driven and machine learning algorithms for anomaly detection of corrupted measurements from Wide-Area Monitoring System (WAMS) of power system utilities. The developed tools will be validated using Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) environment. The results of the project are intended to contribute to the transmission system utilities taking a step forward to reach the transition goals within the established timeframe.

Many Research shows that principals’ competencies have implications not only on teachers, as their leadership underpins the work of teachers, but also on student achievement (Branch et al., 2013, Day et al., 2016). The school principals have the primary and the ultimate responsibility for the pedagogical, social and administrative management of the school (Alladatin, and al., 2021).
Leadership is therefore a crucial factor in the success of educational reforms. The most important questions to consider are: How can we develop highly competent school principals and make their positions more attractive, effective, and sustainable? How can we provide future school principals with the required knowledge and practices?
From the perspective of work didactics, this project proposes to design a framework guideline, that will eventually serve to develop platform of training and support program for school principals, which will be more efficient and coherent with the real work situation contexts. The framework guideline is based on an analysis of the real activities of actual primary and secondary school principals in Morocco, with a sample of 30 schools’ principals. We are using the auto-confrontation interviews as a methodological tool, since it is a powerful process of understanding and explaining real activity with the aim of transforming and improving work situations.
This project allow to develop multinational collaboration and expertise on the use of activity analysis, as an innovative approach to professional development, in order to achieve the SDG 4 goal: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.

Heavy metals are toxic to all biota if they are present at elevated concentrations. In agriculture, heavy metals are inadvertently applied to soils, thereby impairing the quality of soils, freshwater, and crops. Switzerland has a tight-knit soil data base that has identified major heavy metal inputs into agroecosystems. Such data is a pivotal prerequisite for implementing measures that reduce the environmental and health risks associated with heavy metals in agroecosystems. In Palestine (i.e. in the Occupied Palestinian Territory), there is no such data base, and it is not possible to assess the risk of current agricultural practices on the environment and health of Palestinian society.

The overarching goal of the HEMiPA project is to sustain and improve soil, water, and crop quality by assessing the heavy metal fluxes in Palestinian agriculture. The HEMiPA project includes researchers that have expertises in Palestinian agriculture and expertise in heavy metals in Swiss agriculture. We expect that, unlike in Switzerland, it is not only fertilizers, but also irrigation water that serves as a potential source of heavy metal inputs into agroecosystems in Palestine. Water scarcity is a major challenge for agriculture in Palestine because of its semi-arid conditions, political restrictions, and climate change. To cope with water scarcity, wastewater is recycled and used for irrigation. However, data from other countries have shown that wastewater is often contaminated with heavy metals, which exacerbates the heavy metal transfer into agriculture.

To assess the risk of heavy metal fluxes in Palestine agriculture, we will identify major sources and pathways of heavy metals in Palestinian agroecosystems and provide mass balances for agricultural soils. We will begin by conducting a sample campaign in the diverse model region of Jenin (West Bank). Samples will be processed and analyzed in specialized laboratories at ETH. Beyond these scientific activities, we will disseminate our results to peers and stakeholders in Palestinian agriculture via work shops and fact sheets. We will provide knowledge transfers between the two countries, including training of technicians and students. Building on the activities and outcomes of the HEMiPA project, we will prepare a larger research proposal to establish a long-term collaboration between Swiss and Palestinian researchers with the aim of reducing heavy metals concentrations in Palestinian soils, waters, and crops.

The Drâa-Tafilalet region in south-eastern Morocco is one of the country’s poorest. Here, and in the Saharan desert regions of Morocco in general, camels are a major income source for the nomad population. The camels are kept mainly for meat and transportation, while their milk is mostly consumed locally by family members or by the young dromedaries (Al haj and Al Kanhal, 2010). This part of the country increasingly suffers from droughts due to climate change. Due to the lack of feed caused by drought, milk production of the camels decreased by 30% in 2022 compared to 2021 (Taha, 2023). This project focuses on three different aspects: (1) Development of a camel feed based on argan, tomatoes and watermelon by-products to compensate for the lack of natural feed; (2) Valorization of the camel milk with the development of new dairy products; (3) Development of a centralized production site in the form of a cooperative (preferably for women).

This grant will allow the team from Switzerland to work with the team from Morocco to perform an extended value chain analysis to understand the needs and production challenges of all stakeholders in the camel-milk value chain. During this first phase, a market analysis and focus group discussions with potential consumers and production actors will take place. The goal is to understand the production challenges, possibilities and solutions for producers. Thanks to this preliminary study, it will be possible to focus on the development of the right camel dairy products, as well as a potential feed component based on by-products, for the next steps of the project.

La formation et l'accompagnement pédagogique des enseignant·e·s de l'enseignement supérieur sont devenus une priorité à l'échelle internationale. En France comme en Suisse, divers rapports ont insisté sur la mise en place de formation à l’enseignement universitaire de manière institutionnalisée. Ainsi, on a assisté à l’émergence des services de soutien à l’enseignement (centres, structures ou unités d’appui et de soutien).

Dans le contexte tunisien, les services de soutien pédagogique de manière institutionnalisée pour les enseignant·e·s-chercheur·e·s (accompagnement au sein de l'université, centre d'appui pédagogique) sont absents. De plus, aucun pré-requis pédagogique n’est exigé lors du recrutement des nouvelles et nouveaux enseignant·e·s. Par conséquent, il n’est pas rare de passer toute sa carrière à enseigner sans jamais avoir accès à une quelconque formation ou à un soutien pédagogique.

Aujourd’hui, l’enseignement supérieur agricole est au cœur de la transformation des métiers, et se doit d’assurer une offre de formation répondant aux besoins du milieu socio-économique et du secteur agricole dans sa globalité. Cette formation doit permettre aux futur·e·s diplômé·e·s d’acquérir des compétences et de fortes capacités d’adaptation et d’innovation pour relever les défis de l’agriculture tunisienne dans un contexte marqué par le changement climatique et la rareté des ressources naturelles (eau, sol, biodiversité). Toutefois, l’enseignement supérieur agricole ne bénéficie d’aucune structure d’innovation pédagogique et d’appui à la formation des enseignant·e·s-chercheur·e·s en ingénierie de formation et aux méthodes pédagogiques actives et au numérique.

L’objectif de cette proposition de collaboration bilatérale est :

• identifier les lacunes en compétences pédagogiques de l’enseignement supérieur agricole en Tunisie,
• élaborer et valider un référentiel des compétences pédagogiques adapté à l’enseignement supérieur agricole en Tunisie,
• développer des réseaux de coopération internationale en matière de pédagogie universitaire et créer un pool de catalyseurs afin de transposer cette expérience et faire émerger ultérieurement la mise en place de dispositifs d’appui pédagogique et d’accompagnement au sein des universités tunisiennes et plus tard dans la région MENA et l’Afrique Francophone.

Obesity is one of the world’s largest health problems, constituting a major risk factor for several of the world’s leading causes of death, including heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer. Globally, >39% of adults are overweight, and countries in North-Africa and the Middle East suffer from some of the biggest increases in obesity rates worldwide.

Obesity constitutes an excess accumulation of fat, which, under physiological conditions, is stored in white adipose tissue (WAT) depots in specialized cell types called adipocytes. Adipose depots expand via an increase in adipocyte size (hypertrophy) and/or number (hyperplasia). The expansion capacity of WAT depots is intimately linked to the metabolic health status of an individual. Indeed, obesity is associated with impaired WAT expansion and increased inflammation and AT fibrosis, which results in the deposition of lipids in other organs, leading to metabolic derangements. Adipocyte numbers are controlled by the engagement of adipose stem and progenitor cells (ASPCs) to differentiate into new adipocytes. Our laboratory has pioneered the study of ASPC subpopulations in different fat depots at the single cell transcriptomic level, leading, for example, to the identification of cell types within the ASPC niche that can control adipogenesis in a paracrine manner. However, how ASPC subpopulations are affected at different stages of obesity, most notably between healthy obese patients and those displaying metabolic complications, is still poorly understood.

Through this grant, we aim to collaborate with the Sidra Medicine in Qatar, which has been collecting human fat biopsies from control, healthy obese, prediabetic and type 2 diabetic patients. From these biopsies, a cellular fraction containing ASPCs was isolated and frozen, which we now aim to analyze using single nuclei transcriptomics (snRNA-seq). This will allow us to evaluate how obesity and diabetes functionally influence specific ASPC subpopulations. In addition, we intend to integrate our ASPC snRNA-seq data with other single cell and histological datasets that are being generated in our lab and in Sidra Medicine, allowing to evaluate how compositional and/or molecular changes in APSCs correlate with adipocyte size and number, as well as AT inflammation, in diverse disease stages. Thus, the proposed studies will contribute to an increased understanding of the biology and functional relevance of multiple ASPC subtypes in health and disease.

Ce projet part du constat d’un déficit en termes de formations en compétences globales (soft skills) chez les étudiants marocains et suisses issus des facultés leur permettant de suivre leurs études de manière efficiente, mais surtout de pouvoir s’intégrer dans le monde professionnel. La littérature a montré de manière patente qu’au-delà des compétences strictement disciplinaires et techniques (hard skills), les entreprises sont d’abord sensibles, dans les processus de recrutement, aux qualités personnelles et interpersonnelles des collaborateurs. Tout d’abord, nous organisons un workshop en Suisse qui nous mettra en lumière les pratiques actuelles et les attentes des entreprises suisses et marocaines. Nous échangeons sur l’importance des compétences globales en termes d’employabilité et nous introduisons la discussion sur le rôle de l’enseignement supérieur suisse et marocain dans la formation sur ces compétences. Au Maroc, nous organisons une école d’été qui vise à établir l’état des lieux quant aux activités existantes et non formalisées menant à des formations sur ces compétences (activités de clubs, modèles pédagogiques, initiatives ponctuelles de certains enseignants…). Nous programmons des ateliers participatifs analysant de bonnes pratiques et co-créons des pistes de réflexion en la matière. L’occasion sera également donnée aux représentants d’entreprises de nous présenter les besoins professionnels. Des doctorants en science de l'éducation participeront aux réflexions durant les ateliers. En parallèle, nous procédons à des évaluations de ces compétences chez les jeunes étudiants marocains et suisses en mobilisant le questionnaire développé par l’équipe suisse lors de ses précédents travaux de recherche. Ces différentes activités permettront d’orienter efficacement nos réflexions et de définir les axes prioritaires pour le dépôt d’un projet européen. Afin de disséminer les résultats de ce projet, des actions de sensibilisation et de communication seront programmées. La participation commune de l’équipe Suisse-Maroc à une conférence internationale ponctuera le projet et permettra de créer un réseau pérenne bilatérale tant en termes de formation que de recherche. En résumé, notre projet portera sur des activités de diagnostic, de sensibilisation, de soumission d’un projet Erasmus et de publication.

Region of interest: Northwest Africa, Lake Ifrah (Middle Atlas, Morocco)
Main objectives:

• Further explore the relationship between precession minima and sustained high lake levels and propose mechanisms that
  may be involved to explain the effect of the cause.
• Decipher the suborbital signatures (HSs and GSs) from lacustrine offshore facies deposited presumably during MIS-3.
• Address deliberately the question of the Last Termination, whose information is seriously lacking in NW Africa, and the relationships between the Saharan wind intensity and its signature in the studied lake basin.
• Attempt to conduct quantitative reconstruction of palaeotemperature using clumped isotopes combined with trace elements.
• Build a model to showcase the orbital control on sedimentation dynamics using the sequence stratigraphic approach in an interior basin case.
  Research method:
• Sampling water, sediments, and plant remains/charcoals (for radiocarbon dating).
• Taxonomic IDing of ostracod fauna and petrographic examination of carbonate layers.
• Analytical work for isotopes and trace elements, total organic carbon, and grain size measurements.
• Radiocarbon dating of 10 samples.

The primary objective of this project is to advance the frontier agriculture in Jordan, by incorporating innovative practices within the Water-Energy-Food-Ecosystem Nexus (WEFE Nexus). This involves focusing on food security, job creation, skill development, and environmental resource management to drive positive change.
Frontier agriculture comprises a range of innovative and climate-smart and water-saving technologies like hydroponics, bioponics, and aquaponics, which hold immense potential for both rural and urban settings.
Presently, global malnutrition impacts around 2 billion people, leading to micronutrient deficiencies and obesity issues.
Vertical soilless cultivation in constrained urban spaces, like walls and rooftops, is versatile, as it spans from low- to high-tech solutions. Aquaponics, which combines fish and crop growth, is an integrated approach that holds the potential to maximize productivity on the same spatial footprint, avoiding the negative ecological impact of conventional aquaculture or crop farming. The environmental sustainability of aquaponics is well-established, however, its economic feasibility depends on a plethora of factors, including climatic conditions, inputs (materials, fish feed, fertilizer, plant protection, water, energy) and all associated costs.
Jordan is one of the world’s driest countries. It hosts millions of refugees following the civil war in Syria. In this arid context soilless cultivation methods emerge as a promising avenue for food production, as they provide nutrient-rich food and create income opportunities. The project's long-term vision aligns with the empowerment of women, refugees and other vulnerable groups through hands-on training, demonstrating the potential of "-ponics" to drive positive change in their lives.
The ongoing challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic and geopolitical conflicts, highlighted vulnerabilities in global supply chains and emphasized the need for localized agro-food systems.
The project focuses on capacity building for soilless technologies (aquaponics, hydroponics, bioponics) through a community of practice, interdisciplinary research, and targeted skill development for vulnerable groups. Prioritizing frontier agriculture in Jordan, can enhance food security, reduce the pressure on the WEFE Nexus, generate income and profitable businesses, and decrease inequality, becomes a step toward building overall resilience.

Breast cancer prevalence and incidence have increased worldwide and remain the major cause of mortality and morbidity among women, including in Europe and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Breast tumors express higher DNA polymerase 1 (POLA1) levels compared to normal breast tissues. POLA1 is the initiating enzyme of DNA synthesis in mammalian cells. Dr. Nadine Darwiche (the main applicant in the MENA region) and collaborators have reported that the adamantyl retinoid ST1926 is a POLA1 inhibitor that impedes the proliferation and induces cell death of human breast cancer cells while sparing their normal counterparts. They have recently synthesized the ST1926 analogs, MIR002 and GEM144, which are dual POLA1 and histone deacetylase 11 (HDAC11). Breast tumors express higher HDAC11 levels compared to normal breast tissues.

Breast cancer patients encounter cancer recurrence and drug resistance, pressing the need for novel therapeutics. In particular, triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is the subtype with the least favorable outcomes due to its highly invasive nature and poor response to therapeutics. The partners aim to test for the antitumor activities and mechanisms of action of ST1926, MIR002, and GEM144 in TNBC in vitro and in vivo models. Their hypothesis is that these drugs suppress breast cancer cell and tumor growth, as breast tumors express elevated POLA1 and HDAC11 levels.

The development of adequate and orthotopic preclinical animal models provides a more suitable assessment of successful therapies. Available mouse models do not allow the development of different phases of breast tumor formation. However, breast cancer cells of any hormonal status and stage engraft intraductally in mouse teats, progress, and mimic their clinical counterparts. Dr. Cathrin Brisken (the main Swiss partner) is a leading reference in breast cancer using the orthotopic intraductal breast cancer mouse model. The partners will establish this model at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon using TNBC cell lines and patient-derived xenografts (PDXs). This latter animal model will be the first of its kind to be set in the MENA region. It will be used to treat mice with POLA1 inhibitors compared to standard therapy. In addition, the PDX model offers an opportunity to investigate patient-derived tumors and suggests specific and potentially effective treatments, therefore impacting the future of clinical research.

The project's main aim is to develop century-long chronologies of conifer wood cell anatomical traits within the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, with the intention of linking these traits to drought events documented by instrumental data. MENA, being a climate change hotspot with rapid and projected climate changes, raises concerns about water resources' vulnerability to climate change. In this context, historical long-term perspectives are crucial, as they provide insights into natural climate variability and contribute to climate model parametrization, enhancing predictions. The project seeks to address uncertainties in drought variability records by using innovative methods like quantitative wood anatomy (QWA) and investigating individual tracheid cell dimensions for hydroclimatic reconstruction. By delving deeper into wood anatomy and exploring how cell characteristics correlate with drought events, the project aims to offer a more mechanistic understanding of intra-ring proxy-related drought signatures.

To achieve these goals, the project will gather tree-ring samples from conifer trees at key MENA locations. Utilizing fully- and semi-automatic processing of high-resolution imagery, the team will delve into the microscopic aspects of xylem trait features to link cell anatomical characteristics with environmental signals. The QWA approach will allow the creation of continuous century-long chronologies, with a minimum of ten trees sampled per chronology. By applying this approach, the project aims to produce new insights into the relationships between cell traits and drought events, enhancing the understanding of the impacts of water availability on cell formation processes, growth, and wall thickness. The constructed chronologies will be standardized and detrended, and their correlation with drought data will be explored, utilizing Pearson correlations and drought indices. The anticipated outcomes include more accurate historical climate variability records for the MENA region, which can offer valuable insights for climate modeling, risk assessment, and adaptation strategies in this vulnerable region.

"Immersive Imperfection" converges architecture, technology, and sustainability. This project reimagines the way of design, construction, architecture and participation across its core dimensions.

Project Core: "Immersive Imperfection" endeavors to revitalize construction methods by infusing traditional materials with modern digital capabilities. The primary objectives reinterprets construction practices using recycled and vernacular materials, catalyzing climate-adapted architecture, and fostering inclusive social participation in design. This project tackles the pressing global challenges of carbon emissions within the construction sector.

Key Innovation: The project's focal innovation centers on the creation of open masonry walls, employing vernacular clay bricks or recycled materials, all facilitated by cutting-edge digital tools like Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR). By seamlessly merging these diverse elements, "Immersive Imperfection" pioneers a dynamic, transformative, and sustainable approach to architectural design and construction.

Transformative Activities: The project unfolds through workshops, material experimentation, and the integration of AR and VR in architectural design. These activities span international collaborations between industry partners in Switzerland and Egypt, uniting traditional craftsmanship with advanced technology to yield climate-responsible, sustainable architectural solutions.

Tangible Outcomes: "Immersive Imperfection" envisions material and design models for open masonry, the fusion of AR and VR within design and construction, a showcase illustrating feasibility, documentation.

Foundational Collaboration: This project builds upon a partnership between research partners Prof. Christian Schmitt and Prof. Simone Stürwald. Their previous projects emphasized circular and vernacular materials, emphasizing the harmonious coexistence of human craftsmanship and digital innovation.

Sustainable Legacy: Beyond its immediate scope, "Immersive Imperfection" envisions a sustainable legacy. It commits to advancing circular sustainable architecture, promoting inclusive augmented building concepts, climate-adapted solutions, and digital production methods.

In essence, "Immersive Imperfection" charts a transformative course for architecture, harmoniously fusing tradition and technology to empower communities and professionals in co-creating a sustainable future for the built environment.

Historically, disasters have been seen as exceptional events, but their frequency and severity have been on the rise due to the rapid growth of population, increased human concentration in hazardous areas and fast climate change. These factors impact today (and will continue) both Tunisia and Switzerland, which imply the needs for a good preparation for disaster management and relief operations. Failing to account for the increased uncertainties in such conditions can lead to significant delays in relief distribution. It has become imperative to enhance the quality of relief operations, and designing effective Disaster Logistic Networks (DLNs) is a crucial aspect.
This collaborative research project aims to bridge the gap between theoretical models and practical applications with a focus on developing optimization models for pre- and post-disaster DLNs. These models will incorporate prevailing risk factors to tackle the challenges faced in real-world scenarios. By incorporating risk-averse networks, strategic plans can be devised to optimize service levels and response times to affected areas and people while considering the growing pressure of cost efficiency for humanitarian organizations. The research will introduce a novel decomposition model to solve the optimization problems using realistic data models.
The literature review reveals that current mathematical models and solution approaches need improvements to generate more practical and realistic results. The innovation in this research lies in two key areas. Firstly, both pre- and post-disaster factors, including casualty transportation to healthcare facilities, will be considered while constructing the DLN models. Secondly, risk measures for disasters impacting the DLN will be incorporated through various scenarios encompassing both pre- and post-disaster elements. This comprehensive approach will enable the identification of the most critical factors in the system and lead to optimal solutions concerning relief quality, response time, and cost efficiency.
The outcomes of this research will provide valuable insights for researchers in the area of Operations research and Logistics as well as the humanitarian practitioners involved in relief operations in Tunisia and Switzerland. Moreover, it will support decision-making in the design and management of pre- and post-disaster logistics networks, making them more effective and responsive in times of crisis.

Depuis plusieurs années, la fabrication additive connaît un essor remarquable parce qu'elle complète les procédés de fabrication traditionnels en offrant des solutions pour réaliser des pièces complexes non usinables ou pour fabriquer des petites séries, lorsque l'amortissement d'un outillage dédié est impossible.

Le présent projet concerne le procdédé additif LPBF (Laser Powder Bed Fusion). Il consiste à déposer une poudre en fines couches successives. Chaque couche déposée est balayée par un laser parcourant une trajectoire en rapport avec la géométrie de la pièce. Là où elle est touchée par le laser, la poudre fond et se transforme en un solide cohérent lorsque la température retourne à la valeur ambiante.

La précision du procédé L-PBF est affectée par le retrait de la matière lors du refroidissement. Ce mécanisme provoque des gauchissements dans des proportions incompatibles avec les applications mécaniques. Dans ces conditions, il est nécessaire d'imprimer une géométrie légèrement fausse de sorte que la pièce récupérée après les déformations thermiques, soit aux cotes souhaitées. Dans la pratique, l'anticipation des retraits est réalisée de façcon empirique. En se basant sur son expérience, l'opérateur corrige la géométrie à imprimer, fabrique la pièce puis la mesure. Si elle n'est pas correcte, il applique une nouvelle correction à la géométrie puis réimprime et ainsi de suite jusqu'à l'obtention d'une pièce aux cotes. Cette démarche allonge considérablement les délais de fabrication et compromet l'intérêt économique du procédé lui-même.

Le but de ce projet est de combiner les compétences de les écoles d'ingénieur d'Yverdon et de Sfax en modélisation, en calcul scientifique et en fabrication additive (L-PBF) pour développer une technique d'anticipation des déformations basée sur la simulation. Remplacer par des calculs le protocole classique d'essai-erreur devrait permettre une économie de matière de temps et de coûts de production.

Ce projet créera un cadre collaboratif entre les deux écoles dans le domaine de la fabrication additive métallique. Le projet Def@Fab donnera une occasion aux jeunes chercheurs ayant un intérêt pour la thématique abordée de s'impliquer activement et proposer leurs propres solutions. L'intégration de ces connaissances renforcera la formation des élèves ingénieurs en prototypage - fabrication additive et simulation EF.

To reach a net-zero emission electrical grid in the established time targets, power systems would depend on significant amounts of renewable generation and the flexibility to cope with the volatility of these technologies. This offers opportunities for new ideas and innovative solutions. The idea of transferring solar electricity from North Africa to Europe has received increasing interest in recent years, particularly after the concern of European countries to meet electricity demand during winter periods, as anticipated e.g. in the winter time 2022 which turned to be very mild in the end. However, there is a risk that this will not always happen. Different studies have been carried out addressing only political and economic perspectives. Very little has been done to investigate the actual technical challenges to interconnect the European and the North-African power grids. The objective of this project is to demonstrate that solar electricity import from North Africa via new High-Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) links to continental Europe can have a positive impact on the European electrical grid, and consequently the investments needed in power transmission infrastructure and storage could be reduced. The project would address the benefits of the interconnection between North Africa and Continental Europe that have not been presented before.

Dans le cadre des efforts de réduction des émissions de CO2 et de sécurisation de l'approvisionnement en électricité, l’hydrogène joue un rôle de pilier d'avenir. De plus, les piles à combustible offrent également plusieurs avantages qui en font une technologie prometteuse pour un large éventail d'applications. Ce projet porte sur la modélisation multiphysique d'une pile à combustible PEMFC pour tester des stratégies de contrôle correspondants. Le contrôle est essentiel pour l'optimisation, la sécurité et la prévention des dommages et des fuites. De plus, le contrôle peut être utilisé pour détecter les défauts et augmenter la durée de vie des piles à combustible.
Ce projet associe des chercheurs de la HEIA-FR Suisse et de l'USEK Liban. Tous deux, ayant une formation professionnelle dans les piles à combustible et leur contrôle, ont pour objectif de développer un stack de piles à combustible totalisant 200W avec leurs connectiques et leur fonctionnement. En parallèle, un jumeau numérique de la pile à combustible sera implémenté et validé afin d’y appliquer – de manière flexible et peu coûteuse – des tests et des stratégies de contrôle en vue de les implémenter en réel.
À la fin de ce projet de recherche, l'équipe vise à disposer d'un prototype de module fonctionnel de puissance 200 W accompagné de son jumeau numérique. De plus, des résultats d'analyse de tests et de simulations seront livrés avec d'éventuelles recommandations de développement de piles à combustible.

Mental health of young individuals is a major concern worldwide that has been reinforced by the COVID pandemic situation. More than 20% of youths experience a mental health disorder by the end of adolescence and 45% of the global burden of disease lies in the youth age range (18-25 years). Added to that, physical pain has become a major health problem among youth in general and university students in particular, with around 30-50% suffering from it in Lebanon. However, most of the studies on this subject of mental health and physical pain and their interaction, were performed in western-oriented countries. In that framework, a previous study by our group conducted by Dr. Tandon and Prof. Martin-Soelch aimed at identifying protective factors for instance, self-efficacy, social support, and risk factors like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), stress, anxiety, and depression related to physical pain, showed cultural differences among a European country and a South-Asian country, i.e., Switzerland and India. Based on our first studies indicating strong cultural differences, it seemed important to investigate them in more cultural contexts, such as middle eastern context for instance. With this research, we will investigate the specific mental health markers i.e., PTSD, depression, anxiety, and stress, and protective factors i.e. social support and self-efficacy related to physical pain in young adults in Lebanon as well as the role of reward responses as a potential underlying mediating mechanism in this relationship using a similar design as in our previous studies conducted in Switzerland and India. We expect this project to have a beneficial effect on the mental health and well-being of university students and will provide tools for the development of easily accessible and culturally tailored preventive and/or clinical interventions that can be easily translated into scalable and largely accessible interventions and extended to the general youth population to address the strong societal and health burden represented by mental health problems in youths in the two cultural contexts. This project, led by Professor Martin-Soelch who is a Professor in Clinical and Health Psychology, and Vice-rector for Teaching, Continuing Education, Gender Equality, and Diversity and Inclusion from University of Fribourg in Switzerland, will be developed in strong collaboration with Dr. Zalaket, head of psychology department at Holy Spirit University of Kaslik, Lebanon.

Before the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) which cause COVID-19 disease, one of greatest concern is the infections caused by multidrug resistant gram-negative bacteria (MDR-GNB), which are increasingly being reported worldwide. On the other hand, with COVID-19 pandemic during the two last years, the world endured by an increasing consumption of antibiotics, leading to the potential emergence of multidrug resistant gram-negative bacteria (MDR-GNB) which is a grave and a major global health concern. Consequently, there is in fact the increasing dissemination and emergence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The aquatic ecosystem is a non-clinical environment for spreading of pathogens, SARS-CoV-2, MDR-GNB and a hot-spots for horizontal gene transfer.
During the two last decades, AMR is recognized as one of the greatest threats to public health, environment, food security, and is a global concern affecting anyone, any age, in any country. This resistance leads to higher medical costs, prolonged hospital stays, and increased mortality worldly. It can also have negative environmental consequences, which are likely to lead to other global health crises in the future if nothing is done, probably more than COVID-19. Given the number of deaths due to MDR-GNB and the potential epidemic, research must be conducted worldwide to prevent AMR associated with outbreaks as geographical borders do not respect pathogen infections.
In this context, the present proposal will explore:

• The Epidemiology and molecular characterization of MDR-GNB post covid-19 in river receiving systems under temperate and tropical conditions.
• Occurrence of infections with antibiotic resistant Helicobacter pylori in the Middle East environmental sittings.
• Microbial quality of irrigation water and its consequences on the vegetable produce in developing countries under tropical condition.
  Quantitative data from different sittings will be useful to evaluate the potential risks and to limit the spread of MDR-GNB. Additionally, the results from this study shall provide insights on the possible routes of exposure and determine the prevalence of antibiotic resistance among the environmental isolates, which could provide insights to the antibiotic therapeutic regimen. On other hand, this project will maintain and reenforcing the alliance between Saudi Arabia and Swiss counterpart; each specialized in their research poles to obtain a long-term collaborative project.

Our project intends to progress from developing emergency interventions, aimed at securing architectural decorated surfaces of the Bagdhadi ceilings, studied in 2022 during the SUPSI first mission funded by the Research Partnership Grant (LH MENA call 2021) to designing long-term conservation measure, that could be efficient, essential, and sustainable.
The project will address the Sursock Palace as an ideal case study, a building of great historical and artistic relevance but at the same time representative of a wider reality as its construction and decorative elements are like those of other traditional Beirut houses.
The research will proceed on two parallel but closely interconnected fronts, considering:
A. Technical issues related to developing sustainable techniques to facilitate the conservation of other similar decorations and
B. Critical issues to understand if and how the traces left by the explosion of the silos in the port of Beirut could be completely erased or they could be integrated as a significant layer of history into the architectural spaces.

To reach this goal we will have to consider:

• a deep and sound knowledge of the existing construction technique, that will allow to design minimal and effective consolidation interventions with simple and easily replicable operations.
• compatible traditional materials, available locally and the possibilities to adapt them for our specific needs.
• the local people to be involved in the project by developing conservation strategies and techniques compatible with local skills and the involved stakeholders.
• how to foster sustainability into conservation, proposing preventive and minimal interventions, aiming at the retention of the original structure and materials with minimal alteration, removal or substitution of the original components.

Finding permanent solutions for the consolidation and presentation of these surfaces implies considering not only their material dimension but also their artistic and cultural value. Taking into consideration the severe losses suffered by the internal spaces it will be important to reflect on how to address the problems of image integration, based on the discussions opened with the two round tables that were organised by SUPSI and the Lebanese project partners in July 2022 and in April 2023, finding a delicate balance between reconstructing the original surfaces as they were and including the traces of their sad history.

The Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) faces a severe water crisis, with approximately 660,000 Palestinians experiencing restricted access to water, and access to water volume well below WHO recommendations (Human Rights Council, 2021). This crisis is exacerbated by arid climate conditions, population growth, Israeli control over water resources, and infrastructure demolitions. The Hebron Governorate, the largest in the West Bank, is particularly affected, with some communities relying on as little as 20 liters of water per capita daily (Amnesty International, 2009).
Water scarcity bears profound social, economic, health, and agricultural consequences. It leads to waterborne diseases and economic challenges due to costly water trucking services. To address this issue, our project explores the greywater reuse for irrigation as a feasible solution at the household level.

Our project aims to create a greywater treatment system customized for Palestinian communities. It assesses its technical performance, safety, acceptability, and affordability. We focus on closing identified gaps by developing digital monitoring, conducting risk assessment, economic feasibility analysis, and examining user acceptance, as well as drivers and barriers to adoption. Key stakeholders like the Palestinian Water Authority and WASH Cluster Partners will be engaged to en-sure success and foster broader greywater reuse adoption.

Our multifaceted approach includes field research, technical laboratory evaluations, pilot greywater reuse system implementation, and stakeholder engagement across five work packages. Activities encompass desk studies, field visits, surveys, technical and user-centered assessments, and stakeholder engagement. Risk mitigation strategies address technical failures, infrastructure damage, security concerns, and partnership building.

We seek to raise awareness about water scarcity's severity and greywater reuse's potential. We aim to develop, evaluate, and implement a practical technical solution, alongside a comprehensive monitoring and management concept. Our goal is to lay the groundwork for future research and scaling efforts, expanding the adoption of greywater reuse systems. Our vision is to make a lasting impact by addressing acute water shortages through greywater reuse, improved water management, and stakeholder collaboration.

Tunisia has experienced political and economic challenges in recent years, which have had a significant impact on its youth. The ongoing political transitions and economic uncertainties have created a pressing need to equip young people with competences that not only enhance their employability but also foster resilience in the face of adversity. The project “Fostering Self-Competences in Tunisian Youth Centers” (short FOYER) seeks to explore how a program promoting self- and social competences in Tunisian youth centers can address these critical needs. Youth centers play an important role in fostering personal growth, social integration, and they are crucial for non-formal education of young people in Tunisia.
The FOYER-project consists of two components: (1) An educational intervention in the Jdaida Youth Center in Manouba and (2) a research study examining the impact of this intervention on the stakeholders the youth center. The Jdaida-center is considered as pilot institution and the research findings will serve to adapt the educational program for further youth centers. The educational intervention comprises two crucial elements. On the one hand, the educators’ and social workers’ capacities are enhanced to provide life skills activities in their youth center. On the other hand, the FOYER-project provides the trainers of the Jdaida Youth Center with an educational program to raise the self-awareness and social competences of the young people. The research component of this project examines the impact of the educational intervention on the self-awareness, social competences, and social inclusion of a core group of young people in the Jdaida-center. It thereby identifies the crucial elements of a self- and social competences training program for educators in youth centers. The findings of the research serve to develop a robust model of good practice in this field. The FOYER-project hence provides the basis that allows the scaling up of the developed and improved educational program that supports young people in youth centers in Tunisia.

L’Encyclopédie d’archéologie arabe est dirigée par les Prof. Michel E. Fuchs et Youcef Aibeche des universités de Lausanne et de Sétif 2 (Algérie). Sous la co-responsabilité scientifique de Néjiba Maamar, chercheuse en archéologie et en histoire ancienne à l'Université de Lausanne, le projet débute en septembre 2023. Dédiée à l’archéologie et à l’histoire ancienne de tout le monde arabe, elle couvre toute la période antique dans une large acception.
L’Encyclopédie répond à une nécessité scientifique et culturelle majeure pour le monde arabe qui concentre un patrimoine archéologique d'une importance capitale dans l'histoire de la civilisation humaine. Celui-ci reste menacé de disparition dans certaines zones. Un tel patrimoine doit être préservé de différentes manières selon l'UNESCO. Le projet vise donc le soutien à la recherche en histoire ancienne et en archéologie ainsi qu’à l’enseignement de ces disciplines, d’autant plus que celui-ci a un statut marginalisé dans la formation supérieure dans les régions concernées. Cette difficulté est amplifiée par le fait que nombre de concepts archéologiques sont mal définis en arabe, la terminologie étant souvent lacunaire dans cette langue. En outre, les étudiants ne maîtrisent généralement pas de langues autres que l’arabe. L’un des buts du projet est en conséquence de pallier ces défauts.
L’Encyclopédie a pour vocation de rassembler les connaissances actuelles sur les différentes disciplines de l'archéologie. Il s'agit d'un travail de recherche dans lequel nous produisons les données en arabe et en anglais, sous forme d'articles scientifiques soumis à l’expertise de collègues suisses et internationaux. Notre objectif est de faire de l'Encyclopédie un outil de référence et d'enseignement pour les étudiants, les archéologues et les chercheurs. Elle est aussi conçue comme un facteur de consolidation du travail des différents acteurs dans le domaine de la préservation du patrimoine de la région MENA. L’Encyclopédie se présente sous un format numérique en open access dans le but d’en garantir l’accès général et d’augmenter régulièrement son contenu sur le long terme. L'Encyclopédie étant bilingue anglais-arabe, elle est destinée à l'ensemble de la communauté scientifique, assurant au projet un large impact international.

The project aims at the development of vibration isolating and attenuating advanced materials that are based on both single and interpenetrating-phase, architected topological designs. In particular, it targets the engineering and design of moderate and high-strength viscoelastic co-continuous composite materials that rely on triply periodic minimal surface (TPMS) topologies for the first time.

The project working packages explore the dynamic performance of advanced material designs with a wide combination of stiffness, density and viscosity attributes, that remains up to now utterly explored. As such, the project premises the exploration of an entirely new dynamic material performance space, with significant vibration isolation attributes over a wide range of frequencies that is utterly infeasible for single-phase and merely elastic architected solid materials. The project combines extensive numerical analysis and machine learning parts, that are supported by a considerable amount of advanced manufacturing and experimental testing tasks. For this purpose, extensive, experimentally-calibrated datasets will be created, serving as a reference for this utterly novel advanced material design dynamic performance space.

Machine learning will provide the basis for the development of data-based metamodels that can directly evaluate the dynamic performance of this rather vast space of advanced material designs, while providing advanced modeling capabilities that are infeasible with the mere use of traditional modeling techniques. In particular, the developed machine learning models will render the solution of the inverse optimization problem for dynamic material tasks feasible for the first time, through their coupling with standard optimization analysis techniques. By those means, the inverse on-request design of vibration isolating materials, more specifically, the identification of the inner interpenetrating phase composite design specifications that optimally satisfy vibration isolation targets at a frequency range of interest will become accessible to the engineering community.

The investigation of single phase and interpenetrating architected TPMSs will offer new insights in the mechanics that govern the interaction of two vastly dissimilar phases and allow to reach areas of the stiffness-damping space currently not accessible to conventional materials, especially if high strengths requirements are taken into consideration.

The project aims to study how refugee-led movements, non-governmental actors and state authorities operating on the local city level challenge national-level return policies. Empirically, it focuses on initiatives to support Syrian refugees displaced by the more than decade-long civil war, in two major host states in Europe and the Middle East: Sweden and Jordan. In both countries, Syrian refugees are experiencing mounting political pressure to return to the war torn country as well as the effects of precarious residency, living conditions, and limited access to social rights and societal participation. The project draws on ongoing collaborations between the main partners within the framework of a research project on the transregional politics of refugee return decision-making, and the LH-MENA Consolidation Grant would allow the researchers to consolidate their collaboration and to pursue a pressing research topic emerging from the ongoing research. The project proposes a qualitative and participatory research design that engages with interlocutors involved in supporting Syrian refugees in two cities: Irdib in Jordan, and Gothenburg in Sweden. By comparing different local strategies to challenge return oriented policies, the project contributes with knowledge on the complexities of multi-scalar refugee governance and amplifies strategies for refugees’ inclusion and future-making in host societies.

The safety and liquidity premium of treasury bonds over the business cycle.

US Treasury securities, which are essential assets for both the US government and global financial markets due to their safety and liquidity features, typically trade at a premium. The project seeks to dissect this treasury premium into safety and liquidity components, and to analyze how these vary over the business cycle. Understanding these fluctuations is crucial for central banks in tailoring their policy responses and assessing financial stability, as well as for investors in making better forecasts and investment decisions.

The project will develop both empirical analysis and a quantitative theoretical model. For the empirical part, we will collect and analyze US macroeconomic data, Treasury bonds of different maturities, and micro-level data on corporate bond yields, along with firms' financials. For the analysis, we measure the overall treasury premium as the yield difference between Moody's seasoned Baa (the median bond rating in the US) corporate bonds and long-term Treasury bonds. The safety and liquidity premiums are computed as the yield difference between Moody's Baa and Aaa corporate bonds for safety, and between Aaa corporate bonds and US Treasury bonds for liquidity. Preliminary findings, based on macro data, indicate that these premiums are counter-cyclical, positively related to economic uncertainty, and negatively linked to government bond supply. To gain a more disaggregated understanding of the premia over the business cycle, we plan to examine how US corporate bonds, compared to US Treasuries, relate to US firms' behavior. To do so we will combine and merge data on US firms from Compustat with Bloomberg and Moody's data on corporate bonds.

To have a deeper understanding and uncover the underlying mechanisms driving the evolution of the premia, we develop a real business cycle model with a liquidity-based demand for bonds as well as search frictions in the labor market. Among government and corporate bonds, government bonds are assumed to be nominally safe and liquid, whilst corporate bonds are less liquid and subject to endogenous default risk, leading to fluctuations in the liquidity and safety premiums when the economy experiences aggregate and firm specific shocks. The model will be calibrated to the US economy and will be simulated to generate liquidity and safety premia over the business cycle, consistent with the empirical evidence.

We are now entering a realm of new and exciting space exploration era. The hostile space environment is known to affect both human and microbial biological processes, including the immune system. Spaceflights were shown to dysregulate the function of astronauts’ immune system, suppressing both the function of innate and adaptive immune cells, manifesting a reduced response to both dormant as well as potentially external pathogens. One the main dangers of space, is a potential dysregulation of the entire wound healing process, which will result in an influx of external pathogens. Immune cells, in particular macrophages, are the main orchestrators of the wound healing process and their space-induced dysfunction could potentially cause abnormal wound healing. For healthy wound healing in space, it is envisioned that a rapid seal must be applied, and subsequently space-induced dysfunction immune cells be modulated to operate in an appropriate and healthy manner. The former functions to protect and immediately prevent further infiltration of external pathogens. From data obtained from the RPG Space ImmunoBioinks, we hypothesize that the Space ImmunoBioinks serve both purposes. The supramolecular self-assembling material escapes the need for externally applied stimuli to achieve crosslinking or polymerization for physical stabilization, ideal for dressing the local unique spatial space of individualized wounds immediately through extrusion delivery. Secondly, Space ImmunoBioink is a structuring hydrogel that enables the physical entrapment of biochemical signals or immune cells, our preliminary findings show that macrophages exposed to peptide sequences of the hydrogel can be modulated to likely facilitate wound healing. Such immune cells can be alternatively recruited to wound site through chemotaxis via diffusion released biochemical signals or delivered with the application of the Space ImmunoBioink hydrogels.
In SI-WHIM - Space ImmunoBioInks for Wound Healing In Microgravity project we propose to generate a small lab-on-a-chip bioreactor onboard the random positioning machine that provides microgravity (µG) conditions, to study efficacy and stability of Space ImmunoBioInks for healing simulated ‘wounds’ under μG. This will be achieved by studying macrophage-mediated myofibrotic activity of fibroblastic cells into simulated ‘wounds’ under μG. The envisaged technology will contribute towards space bioengineering research.

Bladder cancer (BC) is a disease with several molecular and pathological pathways, reflecting different behaviors depending on the clinical staging of the tumor and the molecular type. It has been shown that BC is one of the cancers with the most important load of DNA damage. In fact, due to its “reservoir-like” function, the bladder is continuously in contact with toxic molecules and metabolites and subjected to many types of inflammatory and genotoxic agents.
Immunotherapy is a powerful strategy to treat cancer by harnessing the body’s immune system to generate or augment an immune response against it. During the last decade, novel tumor immunotherapeutic approaches have revolutionized cancer treatment. The use of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) against immune escape mechanisms has been approved for treatment of different tumor entities and has been shown to consistently improve the overall survival, yet only in a limited number of patients and tumor types.
In bladder cancer, only 15–25% of patients with advanced disease respond to therapy, and even those who initially respond may later develop acquired resistance. The mode of action of ICIs has been almost exclusively linked to their effect on checkpoint expressing immune cells, while much less is known on immune checkpoint ligand - dependent resistance to ICIs. As extensive efforts have been made to understand how PD1 signaling and regulation on T-cell play a role in tumor resistance to ICIs; here, we propose to tackle the problematic from a novel perspective. In this project, we speculate on an innovative resistance mechanism to anti-PD1/L1 treatment in bladder cancer that plays a role in the initiation and reinforcement of resistance occurring at different phases of tumorigenesis.
Based on this knowledge and preliminary data, we hypothesize on the existence of a therapeutically targetable crosstalk between DNA damage response pathways and PD1-Ligands, and we aim to understand the mechanistic pathways underlying resistance to anti-PD-Ls’ therapy in bladder. Overall, we expect this project to provide novel facets of our understanding of ICIs resistance mechanisms in cancer, and to identify novel therapeutic strategy for bladder cancer patients and beyond.

This project focuses on the investigation of a pressure-based, fully-coupled computational fluid dynamics (CFD) solver. This solver utilizes an edge-based vertex-centered finite volume method (EBVC-FVM). The motivation behind studying the EBVC-FVM approach stems from its superiority over the conventional cell-centered finite volume method (CC-FVM) when dealing with tetrahedral meshes. In the CC-FVM approach on a tetrahedral mesh, there is a limitation in computing gradients within the control volume. Gradients are computed from face values, typically representing averages from the control volume and its neighboring cells. However, tetrahedra have only four faces adjacent to their control volumes, potentially resulting in gradients with lower resolution. On the contrary, the EBVC-FVM approach considers a polyhedral dual mesh corresponding to the tetrahedral mesh. The polyhedral dual control volume exhibits a significantly larger number of faces. Consequently, gradient computation is more accurate as it incorporates information from a greater number of neighboring cells. Tetrahedral meshes are also known to produce numerical diffusion, causing a detrimental effect on the accuracy of the solution particularly in simulations where high-order discretization is crucial, as is the case with Large Eddy Simulation (LES).

Nonetheless, it is noteworthy that highly efficient tetrahedral mesh generators have recently emerged in the industry, drastically reducing mesh generation time. This development encourages the community to increasingly rely on tetrahedral meshes, especially when addressing more complex fluid flow problems involving complex flows and/or geometries that demand denser meshes. Given the extensive adoption of these tetrahedral mesh generators, selecting a discretization approach like EBVC is highly suitable for a sophisticated solver, as it effectively handles tetrahedral meshes. In the existing literature, there is no evidence of solvers that incorporate a dual mesh for their pressure-based approach. Typically, those who do employ a dual mesh tend to use density-based methods. In our project, our goal is to investigate a pressure-based algorithm using the EBVC method, specifically applied to a dualised tetrahedral mesh, and designed to employ an effective vectorization approach, ensuring the creation of a scalable parallel performance. This entails offering methods for GPU acceleration in addition to distributing the computational load across CPUs.

Background Routine daily iron supplementation is recommended for all women during pregnancy and iron supplementation is also first line treatment for overweight women who are iron deficient. High dose iron supplementation in women acutely increases serum hepcidin. High serum hepcidin is linked to abnormalities in glucose and insulin metabolism and may reduce insulin sensitivity. Both pregnant women and overweight women are already at high risk of insulin resistance and impaired glucose tolerance (IGT). Whether their risk of IGT is further increased by the acute increase in serum hepcidin after high dose daily iron supplementation is unclear. If high dose daily iron supplementation decreases insulin sensitivity though acute increases in hepcidin, this would argue that these risk groups be given regimens of iron supplementation that do not acutely increase hepcidin, that is, lower dose, alternate day therapy.

Study aims Our primary study aim is to assess whether high dose daily iron supplementation can impair glucose metabolism by decreasing insulin sensitivity in overweight women and pregnant women, two risk groups for IGT. A secondary aim is to assess whether the impairments in insulin and glucose metabolism are associated with higher hepcidin concentrations induced by high dose daily iron supplementation.

Study overview The study will be a randomized, double-blind 17-day metabolic intervention trial including 14 days of high-dose or low-dose iron supplementation. The study will be done at the American University of Beirut (AUB). An identical design will be used in both pregnant women and OW women. The participants will undergo three oral glucose tolerance tests (OGTTs), one before beginning iron supplementation (day 0), one on the final day of supplementation (day 14) and one after supplementation has been stopped for three days (day 17).

Injuries and diseases of the nervous tissues are among the most devastating conditions affecting humans and their treatment remains a major biomedical challenge. A great barrier for the development of therapies for neural injuries and diseases is our poor understanding of pathophysiological cues that govern these conditions, as well as the mechanisms by which information is stored and processed. This lack of knowledge is largely attributed to the difficulty of studying neural behavior in vivo because of the complexity of the tissue and challenging access of experimental tools (e.g. patch clamp and electrodes among others). In vitro cultures on the other hand mostly fail to mimic the controlled cell-cell contact and are largely based on random two dimensional (2D) neural networks.
Here we propose to create 2D and three dimensional (3D) neural networks by a combination of two direct solution deposition techniques; the first is deposit single cells from a novel bioprinting device (FluidFM® BOT, Cytosurge AG, Switzerland), and the second is using 3D printing to deposit hydrogel materials. Patterns of biomimetic extracellular matrix molecules (e.g. alginate sulfate) that favor the binding of neurons will be placed at pre-defined positions in the substrate where envisioned electrodes are present. Single neurons will then be picked and dropped exactly on the adhesion spots using the FluidFM® BOT bioprinter. Neural axons will be guided to grow along in situ drawn paths using lines with gradients of alginate sulfate that have embedded growth factors. Adsorption of the materials to the substrate will make use of biotin-streptavidin bonding resulting in stable patterns. To construct 3D networks, a thin biotinylated alginate hydrogel will be spin-coated on the substrate. Conductive nanomaterials embedded in the matrix can give the material electrical conductivity and further promote the growth of neural cells. Patterns will then be performed in a similar way as above. Firing events will be measured using calcium imaging or with electrode arrays. Relevant protein deposition including axonal and dendritic markers will be detected by immunohistochemistry. The proposed research will bring forth a controlled neural network using a novel low-cost biomimetic molecule. Such systems can be used to gain better insight into the healthy development of the brain as well as changes during injuries and diseases.

Cette recherche veut tirer profit de presque dix ans de collaborations favorisant un brassage entre chercheur.euse.s qui, sur le vaste enjeu de la régénération écologique du monde contemporain, ont privilégié une mutualisation de savoirs interdisciplinaires (sociologie, géographie, urbanisme, architecture, arts sonores et visuels). Elle vise (1) à consolider une méthode d’investigation fondée sur la mise en place d’ateliers collaboratifs, (2) à approfondir le thème de la régénération écologique en partant de l’enfance qui se présente comme une figure particulièrement fragilisée par le réchauffement climatique et (3) à mettre l’accent sur des partenariats tunisiens et égyptiens que notre consortium MENA avait minorisé au profit de nos initiatives de recherche au Maroc.
Ce projet prend pour axe une réflexion sur la place contemporaine de l’enfant dans l’espace public urbain des métropoles en mutation que sont Le Caire et Tunis. Devant un constat de désillusion post-révolutionnaire, et de délaissement marqué de la sphère publique chez les jeunes (Melliti, 2023), le projet veut questionner la mise en jeu précoce, chez l’enfant, des formes élémentaires de la coexistence démocratique dans le milieu urbain. Il part de l’hypothèse que peut se jouer dans la rue, non pas la déception mais l’apprentissage de la vie publique, et la formation d’un imaginaire du vivre-ensemble.
Méthodologiquement, ce projet de recherche est co-construit avec des enfants et prend appui sur l’occupation temporaire d'édifices pour y édifier des ateliers où se fabriquent en commun des objets rapportés aux enjeux de régénérations écologiques (poupées, chants, légendes, podcast, débats,…). Les espaces occupés, et revivifiés à l’occasion, sont envisagés comme des lieux de témoignage d’expériences sensibles vécues à hauteur d’enfant, comme un atelier de fabrication de communs locaux partageables par les habitant.es du quartier et enfin comme une plateforme d’expression pour les enfants. Ce projet aborde un sujet à la fois négligé par les SHS pratiquées dans le MENA, et très souvent rabattu par la nouvelle gouvernance urbaine sur des questions sécuritaires. Il vise à ouvrir un horizon de réflexion sur la question du bien-vivre dans des villes soumises à de fortes pressions climatiques, en considérant que des éléments de réponse se trouvent logés dans l’expérience qu’en fait l’enfant.