Interacting with space is a constant challenge for Visually Impaired People (VIP) since spatial information in Humans is typically provided by vision. Sensory Substitution Devices (SSDs) have been promising Human-Machine Interfaces (HMI) to assist VIP. They re-code missing visual information as stimuli for other sensory channels. Our project redirects somehow from SSD’s initial ambition for a single universal integrated device that would replace the whole sense organ, towards common encoding schemes for multiple applications. SAM-Guide will search for the most natural way to give online access to geometric variables that are necessary to achieve a range of tasks without eyes. Defining such encoding schemes requires selecting a crucial set of geometrical variables, and building efficient and comfortable auditory and/or tactile signals to represent them. We propose to concentrate on action-perception loops representing target-reaching affordances, where spatial properties are defined as ego-centered deviations from selected beacons. The same grammar of cues could better help VIP to get autonomy along with a range of vital or leisure activities. Among such activities, the consortium has advances in orienting and navigating, object locating and reaching, laser shooting. Based on current neurocognitive models of human action-perception and spatial cognition, the design of the encoding schemes will lay on common theoretical principles: parsimony (minimum yet sufficient information for a task), congruency (leverage existing sensorimotor control laws), and multimodality (redundant or complementary signals across modalities). To ensure an efficient collaboration all partners will develop and evaluate their transcoding schemes based on common principles, methodology, and tools. An inclusive user-centered “living-lab” approach will ensure constant adequacy of our solutions with VIP’s needs. Five labs (three campuses) comprising ergonomists, neuroscientists, engineers, and mathematicians, united by their interest and experience with designing assistive devices for VIP, will duplicate, combine and share their pre-existing SSDs prototypes: a vibrotactile navigation belt, an audio-spatialized virtual guide for jogging, and an object-reaching sonic pointer. Using those prototypes, they will iteratively evaluate and improve their transcoding schemes in a 3-phase approach: First, in controlled experimental settings through augmented-reality serious games in motion capture (virtual prototyping indeed facilitates the creation of ad-hoc environments, and gaming eases the participants’ engagement). Next, spatial interaction subtasks will be progressively combined and tested in wider and more ecological indoor and outdoor environments. Finally, SAM-Guide’s system will be fully transitioned to real-world conditions through a friendly sporting event of laser-run, a novel handi-sport, which will involve each subtask. SAM-Guide will develop action-perception and spatial cognition theories relevant to nonvisual interfaces. It will provide guidelines for the efficient representation of spatial interactions to facilitate the emergence of spatial awareness in a task-oriented perspective. Our portable modular transcoding libraries are independent of hardware consideration. The principled experimental platform offered by AR games will be a tool for evaluating VIP spatial cognition, and novel strategies for mobility training. Systems and libraries will provide solutions for more VIP autonomy in indoor and outdoor activities, including sports (e.g. laser-run). SAM-Guide’s results could also contribute to industries relying on Human-Machine interactions, such as cobotics, smart prosthesis & wheelchairs, and to the development of more immersive AR or VR games. However, our primary concern is VIP’s quality of life, by increased autonomy, access to new forms of leisure, and easier participation in our society.

Like RNA vaccines, our CRISCOFET proposal is revolutionary: it does not need gene amplification. CRISCOFET combines five recent technologies, CRISPR/Cas (clustered regular interspaced short palindromic repeats), EGOFETs (electrolyte-gated organic field-effect transistors), xurography, printed CMOS and green printable paper coating to propose a breakthrough in RNA detection, going from biomolecular machinery to organic electronics/conventional electronics hybridization, on biosourced and recyclable paper sheet. RNA detection and quantification are extremely useful to identify RNA virus infections, as illustrated by the recent pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2, but they are also used to monitor bacterial proliferation in food or after infection in humans or animals, or to monitor the evolution of diseases because a specific gene is expressed or because miRNAs are produced. CRISPR/Cas are new bioactive ribonucleoparticles made of two parts: a Cas protein and an RNA (named CRISPR RNA i.e., crRNA). The system is easily programmable by changing the sequence of the crRNA: a new target, a new crRNA. Its function is to fix specific RNA sequence by hybridization with crRNA, then to activate an RNAse activity. This project proposes a detection of the RNAse activity by using the programmed unraveling of an RNA hydrogel. EGOFETs are innovative organic field-effect transistors for which an electrolyte is placed between the gate electrode and the organic semiconductor. As for all FETs, the gate capacitance drives the current flowing through the transistor. We propose to functionalize the gate with a hydrogel crosslinked by RNA strands. Upon CRISPR/Cas RNAse activity, the gel collapses, that is sensed by a change in capacitance, amplified by the transistor into a change in current. The approach we propose would contribute to make RNA point-of-care tests more available and easier to deploy on a large scale, more sensitive, giving immediate result, biosourced and recyclable.

The TITULI project aims to study a little-known source from the Middle Ages: the mortuary rolls. These scrolls contained death notices that monks and canons circulated throughout Europe to inform their fellow monks of the death of one of their number and to request prayers for the deceased. These documents consisted of a letter of departure (encyclical), entrusted to the bearer of the scroll, to which were attached, at each stage of the journey, titles (tituli) honouring the memory of the deceased and promising prayers. The 471 scrolls of the dead dating from before 1536 and preserved today have been published in 5 volumes by Jean Dufour (Dufour, 2005-2013). The mortuary rolls, by virtue of their progressive writing as they travelled, are exceptional documents for studying the phenomena of circulation in the medieval world of Latinity, both in terms of people - the rotuliger or scroll bearer - and objects - the scroll and the materials needed to produce it - but also in terms of writing models - (palaeo)graphic and textual - attesting to cultural and institutional proximities. The project has three main aims: 1) to contribute to a history of circulation and movement in medieval Europe, which, through the study of networks, could lead to a better connection between scriptural, liturgical and cultural developments observed on a local scale 2) to contribute, on the basis of the case of the mortuary rolls, to the study of the use and resilience of terrestrial communication networks 3) to complement the study of ecclesiastical networks in the medieval period by modelling the movements of scroll carriers.

The last ten years have witnessed considerable expansion into various omics data that has resulted in an explosion of publicly available heterogeneous biological datasets. Recent genotyping and profiling technologies enable the scientific community to investigate disease-related genomic alterations in human disorders. At the same time, it becomes increasingly clear that some complex diseases result from the interaction between individual genetic background and environmental factors, as for lung or coronary heart diseases. While promising biological treatments are being explored, health professionals progressively advocate medical educational or preventive interventions, for which the clinical benefits have been positively evaluated by previous studies. Such interventions comprise the transmission of medical knowledge on phenotypic traits or symptoms and hence improve the patient survival by for instance triggering earlier testing. These interventions also instruct on measures that can counteract the onset of a complex disease (e.g., diabetes, chronic respiratory diseases or rheumatoid arthritis) by avoiding or modifying key extrinsic risk factors (e.g., tabacco or alcohol consumption, unhealthy diet). It is also crucial to identify the combined causal effects of environmental factors to propose efficient treatments with few or no side-effects. Hence, effective interventions should be based on the most exhaustive and accurate information on the phenotypic traits (phenome) and the environmental exposures (exposome) in the context of a complex disease. The GePhEx (Genome-Phenome-Exposome) project proposes to automatically discover the phenome and the exposome associated to genomic alterations in the context of a given human complex disease and to learn the causal relationships between symptoms, environmental factors and impacted genes. This project is dealing with critical public health issues as the discovery of new environmental determinants or phenotypic traits of a disease could help to establish efficient medical recommendations and favor earlier diagnosis. The novel analytic methods proposed by GePhEx will enable (i) automatic discovery of exposures and their associated phenotypic traits from large amount of publicly available biological data and scientific literature, (ii) causally relate phenome, exposome and genome entities in the context of a specific disease and (iii) provide an easy-to-use web application to improve patient self-awarness and pratictioners early diagnosis. Humans encounter numerous environmental exposures over the lifespan (e.g., smoking, air pollution, dietary imbalance) and a non negligeable portion of complex disease risk is likely due to interactions between these exposures and genetic factors. New machine learning approaches are necessary to analyze complex data that include genome and environmental information. The discovery of environmental causes, acting either alone or in concert, could strengthen the basis for risk assessment and prevention. GePhEx proposes big data analytics and visualization tools to accelerate research related to human exposome, establish mechanisms of disease causality and promote public health interventions.

RADIO-AIDE is a multidisciplinary project that aims to develop advanced spatio-temporal models and new Artifical Intelligence tools for brain Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) data processing to : a) generate new knowledge about the underlying neurotoxic mechanisms implied in the initiation and temporal progression of cognitive dysfunctions following brain radiotherapy (RT) and the radioresistance of targeted brain structures, accounting for the tumor-response status as contextual data; b) predict individual cognitive impairment at early stage after brain RT to set up mitigation measures to preserve the quality of life for survivors; c) provide to clinicians a usable academic tool to perform an automated processing of MRI data acquired in clinical routine, from the longitudinal extraction of clinically relevant image-based biomarkers. The project will be guided by the rich and multimodal data from the EpiBrainRad cohort including patients treated by RT for a high grade glioma.