Music is a universal human trait and ubiquitous in everyday life. However, about 4% of the population is afflicted with a rare perceptual disorder of music perception and production, referred to as congenital amusia. Scientific research about this lifelong disorder has developed only recently, and its behavioral and cerebral underpinnings are still under-investigated. The major deficit in congenital amusia is linked to the processing of the pitch dimension in the auditory signal, thus having destructive consequences for music processing. Pitch discrimination thresholds are generally abnormally high in amusic individuals, and this has been initially interpreted as evidence for a primary deficit in pitch perception. More recent findings have revealed a deficit in short-term memory of pitch information, which seems to be the principal impairment as it can occur without pitch perception deficits. Our present research project will investigate behavioral and cerebral correlates of pitch perception and memory with two major goals: Firstly, we aim at deciphering the deficits as well as the spared processes linked to pitch perception and memory in congenital amusia by combining behavioral measures and brain imaging studies (with both functional and anatomical methods). Secondly, we intend to pave the way towards a rehabilitation program for amusic individuals, informed by the knowledge already acquired about the perceptual and memory deficits in amusia and by the knowledge about cross-modal interactions and benefits we have gained in previous research. Our project has three novel, original aspects in comparison to previous research. 1) We will investigate pitch perception and memory in the amusic brain and the normal brain by combining three approaches, namely behavioral, anatomical, and functional imaging methods in the same participants. 2) Our investigations will be using not only, as classically done, explicit investigation methods, but also implicit, indirect investigation methods. The power of implicit processing despite observed explicit failures and deficits has been reported in neuropsychology for a long time in visual perception, language processing and memory, and has been recently extended to music processing, which we will now investigate for congenital amusia. 3) Based on the spared implicit processing capacities, we will combine the investigation of auditory processing with cross-modal interactions. Previously reported audio-visual interactions motivate the development of a research project that exploits cross-modal influences to boost auditory (pitch) processing with concurrent visual information. This allows us to develop and test training methods that should benefit pitch perception and memory. Beyond these perspectives concerning congenital amusia per se, our research program will more generally deepen our understanding of perceptual and memory processes and their cerebral underpinnings. It will benefit to the understanding of basic brain functioning for the perception and memory of auditory information (music, language), but also its interaction with visual information. Finally, the rehabilitation procedures that we aim to develop could further be transposed to pathologies that also encompass deficits in the processing of the pitch dimension in the auditory signal, such as cochlear hearing loss (in particular for people receiving cochlear implants) or dyslexia.

1. Europe is currently seeking to define its identity, above all, its cultural identity. One of the best observatories for defining the common culture shared down through the centuries is its libraries, public or private. In the eyes of the world, libraries have stood as an emblem and have contributed to the formation of both individual and collective identities. Medieval libraries have transmitted a substantial intellectual heritage known to us by two kinds of rich and complex sources : inventories and surviving manuscripts. France is, after Italy, the European country possessing the most sources (ca. 3500 inventories), but it is, along with Italy, one of the last to publish the body of its inventories. The purpose of BIBLIFRAM is to build a corpus of inventories in accordance with the most rigorous scientific criteria, and to provide the intellectual and technical tools for exploiting a documentary treasure difficult to access: technical, in that electronic documents consisting of raw data would be available free for downloading online (BDD, encoded texts, digitalized images) and intellectual, in that, printed publications, comprehensive studies, academic research and applications for an enlightened audience /public would also be available. 2. Beginning with a census and an investigation of all known preserved sources (from the 8th to the 19th century) as well as an in depth study of selected dossiers, BIBLIFRAM proposes to determine to what extent the formation of old libraries and the drawing up of book-lists actually contributed to the development of an identity : ideological paradigms ; organized institutional networks ; new and changing cultural models ; evolving reading habits and ways in which books circulated. The project would deliberately strive to be both all-inclusive in constructing the corpus and exemplary in maximizing case studies. A. The first segment, associating all the partners would include and ally research on corpuses of limited size. It has a triple purpose: 1) to enumerate and analyze all book-lists of manuscripts that belonged to medieval libraries (project BMF, Bibliothèques médiévales de France : printed repertory and online database) ; 2) to provide a photographic corpus (digital reproductions) and a text corpus (entry by xml of non copyrighted editions and initial transcriptions) ; 3) to progressively replace these editions by online critical editions based on Lucien Reynhout's project Sanderus electronicus (KBR, Brussels). To be followed by a comprehensive printed book on book-lists. B. The second segment would involve the development and spread of conceptual models for library operation and the choice of texts by various religious orders. 1) The Cistercians would be studied for their role in the constitution of a new type of library organization and for its replication by daughter-houses. All the data on Cîteaux, Clairvaux and all others French houses would be available, combined with a project for a virtual library of Clairvaux. 2) The Mendicants — preachers, professors, heretic hunters — would be studied and compared with their secular concurrents of the Sorbonne. The French sources, though little known, constitute a promising domain for investigation. C. The third segment would reach back to the emblematic cultural models of modern-day France : 1) the Royal Library, at the very roots of French cultural identity : the BNF is launching a vast project of cataloguing and of creating a virtual reconstruction of the Louvre's first library, established under Charles V and Charles VI ; 2) the growth of humanism in the administrative and judicial milieux and the development of cultivated circles. The points 1 and 2 would meet in the study of prestigious private collections that enriched the Royal Library until the end of the 18th century. 3. Repercussions of BIBLIFRAM would be multiple. With this corpus, the international historical community expects France to provide the missing –and central— link in the European chain. Once all the sources are in place with their critical apparati, we would treat the landmark dossiers in depth, thus enabling historical research to make significant progress, in particular with regard to the intellectual history of XIVth and XVth centuries. Without indepth studies on the Sorbonne, the Mendicants, the pre-humanists or the Royal Library, etc., no sociology of reading habits, no archeology of cultural change or identity. By composing series of data within a corpus as exhaustive as possible, we hope to achieve a better comprehension of the erratic itineraries of texts, the discovery of still unknown texts, and a more refined understanding of what was once called, not without reason, 'humanities'. The aim of Biblifram is to open to researchers sources which are difficult to understand with the hope that this will lead to a huge increase of our knowledge.

The MOCA project is dedicated to the study of thin films single crystals from the perovskite family obtained on Silicon substrate by epitaxial routes. The materials developed will be Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 (PZT) with Zr/Ti=52/48 and (Ba,Sr)TiO3 (BST) with Ba/Sr=70/30. Three different deposition techniques will be performed: Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE), sol gel and Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD). The targeted proofs of concept are three fold: acoustic resonators, high-K capacitors and piezoelectric actuators. The final aim of MOCA is to provide a clear status on the superiority of the epitaxial single crystal thin films compared to their polycrystalline counterpart. Four partners will be involved in MOCA. CEA LETI Minatec will be the leader of the project and will process the sol gel layers (PZT and BST) deposited on SrTiO3 (STO) buffered layers, which is mandatory to obtain single crystals on Si. LETI will also realise several proof of concepts devices: resonators with FEMTO, capacitors and piezoelectric or electrostrictive actuators. He will characterize these devices. INL will bring his expertise on MBE to the consortium. He will prepare the template Si wafers with the STO layer and will work specifically on this template layer. He will also prepare BST active layers in order to compare their properties to the one obtained with the other techniques. A demonstrator will be done by the partners (actuators or/and resonators). INL will provide the template layers to the partners. SPMS will work on the PLD route as it is also a recognized way to obtain single crystals as thin films. He will also help the consortium to characterize the structural behaviour of the layers deposited. FEMTO will realize resonators and characterize them. The consortium is very complementary on this dedicated topic of perovskite single crystal on Si. Finally, ST Tours, industrial with a long experience of integrating PZT capacitors with Si, will elaborate specifications and will test the capacitors based on single crystals perovskite in the framework of the MOCA project. The partners have already several common projects and developed the know-how to work together for a long time.