Periodontal disease, conditions that affect the structures surrounding the teeth, is the most common disease of mankind (listed #1 in 2001 Guinness World Records). The total economic impact of periodontal disease represents the major component of the $442 billion direct and indirect expenditures of oral diseases incurred worldwide in 2010. Periodontal disease can lead to tooth loss, causing aesthetic effect as well as affecting chewing and speech. Beyond oral health, it is associated with systemic diseases and even with cancer risk. Obviously, periodontitis represents a major global health problem with significant social and economic impact. Development of effective therapies, therefore, requires deeper insights into the etiopathogenesis of the periodontal disease. The focus has traditionally been that pathogenesis occurs when the balance between the oral microbial biofilm and the host is lost, owing to dysbiosis and immune overreaction of the host to microbial presence. However, bacterial-host interaction alone does not adequately explain the clinical features of the disease. Recently, a new paradigm was proposed in pathogenesis involving a viral and bacterial combination to promote long-term chronic inflammatory disease. The project VIBRiOD will be focused on the etiopathogenesis of periodontitis based on Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)–pathogenic bacterial biofilm–human immunity response synergies. Specifically, the VIBRiOD aims to understand 1) EBV behaviour during periodontitis and relationship to dysbiosis, 2) bidirectional interaction of dysbiosis and EBV activation, 3) tridirectional relationship of dysbiosis, EBV activation and host immune response. The multidisciplinary nature of the project is strong, involving a combination of classic to modern approaches of microbiology, molecular biology, immunology and virology. The results have the potential to contribute to the advancement of periodontitis research and ultimate control of the disease.

Higgs bundles play a fundamental role in the current panorama of mathematics and theoretical physics through their many connections. Amongst the latter is the link with the geometric Langlands programme, a suitable generalization of the relation between a curve and its Picard variety, which moreover admits a natural quantum field theoretical interpretation. According to this, any G- local system on a curve yields a perverse sheaf on the moduli stack of G*-bundles (where G* is the Langlands dual to G). A simpler (abelianised) version of the geometric Langlands programme has been proven for Higgs bundles by Donagi and Pantev. A programme initiated by these two scientists aims at inducing the full Langlands correspondence from its abelianised version. Building on the work of the researcher and the hosts, we will fill in the gaps of this program and provide alternative tools broadening the current state of the art also beyond this action. In doing so, we will study central elements of the geometry of Higgs bundles from a new perspective. More precisely, we will give a way to understand the Bialynicki-Birula stratification via algebraic techniques, and, related to that, carefully study the irreducible components of the nilpotent cone, applying also the theory of SU(p,q)-Higgs bundles. Finally, we will explore the case of positive characteristic, with the aim to shed light on the Hecke eigenproperty in this setting.

The recent economic crisis has also been a crisis for economic theory. Hence, the economic profession started to debate and prepare a methodological reconsideration about the general role of economic models; new modeling strategies, alternative and complementary to the standard Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) models, have therefore emerged. Among these innovative approaches, Agent-based Computational Economics (ACE) started to occupy a prominent role. However, ACE models still need to be improved in three main directions before being ready to be employed as a standard policy tool adopted by central banks. These three directions are: (i) calibration, (ii) external validation, (iii) formal evaluation of systemic risk. This fellowship aims at directly tackling these three issues by employing new statistical learning, econometric, and algorithmic techniques and by applying them to an ACE model that enables one to analyze private and public debt dynamics by closely following the financial and real sectors at the micro-level. The research plan here proposed aims at developing a calibrated and validated model able to explain how the rise in private debt and the interconnectedness of financial institutions might lead to financial crisis, which then might spread to the real sector and ask for a massive public sector intervention, possibly generating also public debt overhangs. Additionally, the innovativeness in the methods here employed will allow to establish higher standards for the development of descriptive ACE models. Once these model are properly and rigosously calibrated and validated by means of real-world datasets indeed, they can be adopted to evaluate a set of counterfactual policy exercises. In particular we aim at understanding which ex-ante policy measures might help avoiding debt-triggered crises and which ex-post policy interventions might help in mitigating their negative effects.

BoostUrCAreer project aims at implementing at Université Côte d’Azur (UCA) a multidisciplinary doctoral programme in e-health to attract to the French Riviera early-stage researchers (ESRs) with the world highest academic, creative and innovative potentials and to enhance their employability with the support from the Region Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur socio-economic dynamism. The proposed programme will foster interdisciplinary, intersectoral and international experiences with the objective of contributing to creating a new generation of PhDs equipped for both academic and non-academic careers in e-health and inclined to the great research and innovation challenges of tomorrow. In line with the strategy of excellence, interdisciplinary and innovation pursued by UCA, every doctoral project will have to associate two laboratories of UCA, a foreign academic partner and a non-academic one. BoostUrCAreer will thus provide a diversified education combining the most basic aspects of research with the practice of transfer toward other the socio-economic world. This dual expertise represents a real added value for career development and is acquired thanks to specific trainings on practical and transferable skills and a six-month mobility abroad at an international research laboratory. A close follow-up as well by two academic supervisors in fundamental laboratories and by an academic tutor and a local non-academic mentor will ensure the quality of doctoral theses and further facilitate the ESRs’ integration to the workforce. High-level applicants are selected through a merit-based, open and fair process to develop projects with UCA excellent research teams. They will receive an attractive allowance and dedicated research funds. BoostUrCAreer will promote European best practices for research and innovations and should serve as a model to disseminate these policies to the whole region.

To better understand cultural relations in today’s multi-ethnic, multicultural societies, we need to revisit the legacy of modern empires. This project delves into the musical dimension of the French empire and what differences were negotiated through aurality, long-neglected by historians. Focusing on musical life and media from Dakar and Rabat to Saigon, 1900-1962, it studies how music was practiced, heard, and understood in a variety of colonial contexts. Crucially important is the need to investigate the tastes, practices, and interactions of Europeans and natives, usually studied in isolation. Such scope requires an entirely new methodological paradigm: relational, comparative, and integrative-synthetic. Traversing disciplinary boundaries separating musicology from history, media studies, and ethnomusicology, the project has four objectives: (1) To musicalize history, it probes what musical fields of production contribute to current debates on the nature of empire and colonial identities. (2) To historicize aural media, it examines live and recorded music on radio as windows on the dynamic nature of colonial coexistence. (3) To globalize music history, it brings new coherence with its focus on a single empire and without imposing postcolonial models of domination/resistance. (4) To creolize research, it integrates indigenous research and promotes dialogue with collaborators from the former empire. Foundations laid by the PI’s prior research in colonial archives, availability of sources, each team member’s expertise and focus on one field, their shared method, and common purpose insure its feasibility. This pioneering study of the modern French empire through music will generate new insights into its mechanisms and constituencies, taking colonial, media, and music history in unprecedented directions. Only in understanding the aurality of colonialism--what helped their imperialism take hold and last--can Europeans grasp its full nature, meaning, and legacy.