Time, space and duration are intertwined concepts of our daily life, yet they have rarely been assessed together in real-life situations. The WildTimes project will initiate an ambitious line of research bridging temporal and spatial cognition in humans during real-world navigation, and pave the way towards understanding how the human brain maps time during complex travels. WildTimes will contribute to fundamental research by empirically contrasting theories of how the human brain represents time, and to practical applications with the conception and the optimization of novel tools to help individuals navigate transportation networks. In this project, we will question how, nowadays, transportation technologies have affected our representation of time, and in turn, how our representation of time affects the transport mode or the itinerary we select. In our first objective, we wish to establish whether typical lab observations on temporal perception - and its illusions - sustain the test of real-life observations in ecological settings. We will elaborate and put to the test several experimental paradigms typically characterizing an individual’s perception of time, in the lab and during transportation. In our second objective, we depart from the observation that with the advances of transport modes, our brain is confronted with discrepant information between the spatial distances that are being travelled, and the time it takes to travel them. For instance, if an average walking pace typically produces a spatial displacement of the self of 5 km (~3.1 miles) an hour, our current means of transportations largely increased the relativistic appreciation of distances with respect to time. In cognitive neuroscience, the notion of cognitive map is central for the spatial and temporal mapping of the environment: cognitive maps are a system of representations in the brain enabling an individual to infer its position in the environment. In our second objective, we will thus ask how time and space interact when not fully congruent with the bodily self. In a third objective, we will build on our understanding of time perception and its interaction with space during transport to address how participants may choose particular itineraries in public transports, weight the subjective experience of time and space against veridical information and seek to perfect current means of informing users for better travel experiences. Transversal to all three goals, we will collect behavioral and non-invasive neuroimaging data to assess brain responses during timing tasks in the wild i.e. during public transport. The WildTimes project will help address how the human brain represents time in real-world situations. By characterizing the impact of real-life transports on time perception, we will help understand subjective processes in decision-making for choosing between transport itineraries, in turn helping the elaboration of new tools to help navigation. Our project will thus open new empirical avenues to study time perception while providing novel insights and tools to help travelers in their transport choices.

The objective of the SURICATE project - SURveillance of InfrastruCtures (energy and transport) and environment, with long endurAnce remoTEd piloted air systems - is to deploy a UAV system for automatic searching or surveillance on a given extensive infrastructure, like energy, transport or communication network. The project aims to solve some technological key challenges, and also some regulatory challenges, and to test in real conditions the automatic searching / monitoring process. The scope of the project is to study the interest of using Unmanned Aerial Systems for civil applications, two of them being: * the surveillance of railways (for SNCF particularly), in order to figh against malicious acts and cables theft. * the other one the inspection of high voltage electric cables (for EDF, ERDF, RTE, and also SNCF). Some other applications are also addressed, like environment surveillance and pollution detection. The corresponding market is huge with several tens of thousands of km of cables or rails to be inspected in France only and operators looking for innovative and cheaper solutions than what is available today. Proving the feasability of an efficient solution based on UAVs at the end of this project could pave the way for very promising new markets for UAS use. However, introducing UAS into a civil / commercial marketplace requires to render the UAS a viable, cost effective and regulated alternative to existing resources, and many technological and regulatory key challenges have to be solved. Particularly, the following topics will be adressed in the SURICATE project. * Mission chain: type of sensors, algorithms for detection and tracking of objects of interest, video compression * Communication, with LOS and SATCOM data-links, using civil frequencies and medium bandwith systems. * Airspace regulation The final objective of the project is to propose a roadmap for the use of long endurance UAS for civil market, regarding technical , financial and regulatory aspects. The proposed roadmap should include short (2016), medium (2018) and long (>2020) term issues. The proposed consortium, leaded by CASSIDIAN, is composed of complementary expertises, mixing industrial (CASSIDIAN, Thales Alenia Space), SME (VITEC), university/rechearch institute (ENSEEIHT, Telecom ParisTech) and end-users (EDF, SNCF) teams.

The scouring process represents a significant contributing factor in the destabilising and destruction of civil structures (bridges, earth embankments and buildings) during major flood events, yet our understanding of the mechanisms involved remains highly empirical. The main objective of the SSHEAR project is to improve understanding of this scouring process through the use of innovative observation tools and physical and numerical hydraulic modelling, from laboratory to full-scale, for the purpose of optimising methods specific to diagnostics, advanced warning and general management procedures. This project is intended to create the conditions necessary for an expert opinion to emerge that compensates for, at a national level, a generally acknowledged lack of knowledge. In the case of the French railway network, a comprehensive inventory has been drawn up of infrastructure crossing or located adjacent to waterways. For over 30 years, improvements have continuously been introduced relative to monitoring policy and both the preventive and corrective maintenance of rail and road structures. The practical principles of such monitoring programmes are organised into different actions: periodic and detailed inspections of structures, risk analyses and diagnostics, enhanced surveillance based on the implementation of in situ instrumentation and/or investigation (including bathymetry surveys). However, despite these efforts, a sensitivity classification of structures to the problem of scouring has not been adequately addressed. To overcome this reliance on empiricism, while building general knowledge (especially at the national level) and proposing optimised methods aimed at diagnostics, advanced warning procedures and infrastructure management, SSHEAR sets forth a multi-scale and multi-scientific approach based on: - physical processes of flow and erosion in the vicinity of structures (e.g. bridges, dams, embankments, quay walls), - three laboratory experiments featuring multi-scale observation, - an innovative numerical approach built around a two-phase model, - observations and field recordings of actual structures subjected to hydro-sedimentary forcing imposed due to environmental or anthropogenic actions. The SSHEAR consortium comprises six Partners, whose complementarity offers a major asset to the project, namely: a specialist in soils and fluid mechanics with extensive field practice (Partner 1: Ifsttar); geotechnical and hydraulic engineers together with sedimentologists (Partner 2: Cerema); physicists and engineers focusing on complex systems (Partner 3: FAST); infrastructure management companies (Partner 4: Cofiroute, and Partner 5: SNCF); and a technological research institute, or IRT (Partner 6: Railenium). This combined set of diverse skills makes it possible to conduct a wide range of research on the scouring process and its consequences: - from feedback and measurements in the field to a multi-scale investigation of phenomena - from experimentation to numerical modelling - from fundamental science aspects to engineering aspects - from new knowledge acquisition to practical solutions implemented by end-users.