The 19th century is described in history textbook as the century of nationalism; in art history, it is the notion of school which starts to crystallize the ideological trends of these national definitions. Yet, these categories pose difficulties, not only historically, but also in terms of the international mobility of artists and the close relationships they established with artists from other countries. Investigating such international careers, particularly during their years of training, reveals their complexity and the futility of such exclusive definitions. The nomadic character of the training itineraries of these artists reflects the networks linking artists, amateurs, art dealers, scholars, the artistic affinities between partisans of new aesthetic ideas; the trends which make of one particular workshop the melting pot where one has to be; the ideological motivations of exile or of keeping distance from the institution or even the economic issues which cause early delocalization. The study of this transnational mobility of German artists lies at the heart of the project ArtTransForm II. Thanks to a comprehensive examination of archives in France and Germany, the French-German team of ArtTransForm has already shown the historical scope and the particular modalities of the training of German artists in France at the beginning of the 19th century (1793-1843). The mass of unpublished documents found so far has transformed the knowledge about the trajectories of artists, some of whom are still known today such as Gottlieb Schick, others completely forgotten, but who played a crucial role in the circulation of artistic techniques and styles, such as Ferdinand Jagemann, Carl Wilhelm Pohlke and Friedrich W. Martersteig. The new project ArtTransForm II will therefore benefit from the methodology already developed and from the identified sources in order to tackle the period 1843-1870, for which so far no general synthesis exists. The choice of studying painting in Paris takes however another dimension in the context of emerging international political movements, the boom of plein air painting, international reflections on modern history painting, projects for monumental European decors, the substitution of Rome by Paris as the “metropolis of modernity”, the internationalization of the art market or the establishment of international artistic competitions through Universal Exhibitions. In 1843, Paul Delaroche, who was the reformer of history painting in the eyes of Heinrich Heine, closed his workshop, although it attracted the most ambitious young painters from all over Europe. But this closure didn’t prevent German artists from coming to Paris: quite the contrary, they came in order to work with Thomas Couture, Gustave Courbet, Jean-Léon Gérôme, but also with Barbizon painters, sometimes adopting the same aesthetical postures as their French colleagues. But not always; indeed, if they engaged in some of the ideological and artistic debates of their masters and French friends, they also developed new forms, in a constant movement of interaction between the place they found themselves in and the public they addressed, the landscapes they encountered and the references they appropriated. At the same time, when some critics transformed artists into ‘brush-and-mallet-armed soldiers’ conquering adverse territories, the German painters continued to work side-by-side their French masters, shaping a unique style. The project ArtTransForm II will bring to light the material, economic, ideological, aesthetic and institutional reasons for their choice.

The AIR project targets at a reconfigurable and programmable integrated circuit based on analogue neural network for analysis of the short and middle range radar (24GHz/60GHz) system for new applications in remote and privacy-preserving monitoring of vital signs (heartbeat, respiration). The project will also develop and publicly release the evaluation kit (scenarios, metrics, protocols, datasets) to objectively evaluate the performance of the developed analogue and digital AI systems featuring movement detection methods. The project constitutes a holistic approach to assessment of analogue computing in a novel application of artificial intelligence (AI) to radar based monitoring, which includes: 1) development of AI algorithm suitable for analogue hardware implementation as well as its software counterparts optimized to run on various digital platforms (CPU, GPU, FPGA) for comprehensive comparison; 2) design of an analogue neural network-based circuit to efficiently perform the analysis and classification of the radar signal, and its implementation in CMOS chip; 3) evaluation and benchmarking of the chip performance versus the software/digital realizations of the algorithm. The project will be conducted by a consortium of three partners with complementary expertise. The team at the Institute of Applied Computer Science of the Lodz University of Technology, Poland has an extensive experience in development of AI and machine learning algorithms, and their applications to signal processing and classification in real-life scenarios. The research group at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland has experience in development of millimetre wave radar systems and its applications to vital signs monitoring, as well as in development of ultra-low power circuits for bio-inspired signal processing and their implementations with both standard CMOS and emerging nanotechnologies. The team at Laboratoire national de métrologie et d’essais has an unique and unparalleled experience in evaluation of AI-based ICT systems and specializes in the design of experimental plans and evaluation metrics, and in the specification and qualification of reference data.

The VanaSiC project targets three complementary objectives: (i) the development of vanadium-doped SiC (SiC:V) growth on on-axis SiC substrates, (ii) the growth of graphene with an hydrogenated interface on epitaxial SiC:V back gate, and (iii) the development of two graphene-based devices exploiting this technology. Vanadium doping (i) is a key technology to compensate residual doping in SiC epitaxial layers and to grow high resistivity films that can find many applications in electronics as well as in quantum technologies. In this project, high resistivity SiC:V epitaxial layers on n-doped on-axis substrates will be used as back gate dielectrics on which graphene monolayer or bilayer with hydrogenated interface will be grown (ii). This will allow the fine control of the charge carrier density in graphene around the neutrality point, which is currently achieved by chemical doping with low stability over time. The interest of SiC:V for applications will be demonstrated by integrating epitaxial back gates into two graphene-based devices (iii): a quantum Hall effect resistance standard (QHRS) and a graphene field effect transistor (GraFET) that will be used as a terahertz wave detector. To achieve its objectives, the VanaSiC project brings together four laboratories and one company with complementary expertise and experimental resources. NOVASiC (SME) will grow SiC, the Centre for Research on Heteroepitaxy and Applications (CRHEA, Sophia-Antipolis) and the Laboratory Charles Coulomb (L2C, Montpellier) will grow graphene using propane/hydrogen CVD and silicon sublimation respectively. NOVASiC, CRHEA and L2C will also perform detailed characterisations of the graphene and SiC films. The QHRS and THz detectors will be fabricated by the Centre for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (C2N, Palaiseau), and characterized by the National Metrology Laboratory (LNE, Trappes for the QHRS) and by the L2C (for the THz devices). Many results are expected from this collaborative research project involving a company (PRCE). Once their possible applications in electronics have been demonstrated, the vanadium-doped SiC layers will constitute a new product for the NOVASiC SME. The QHRSs incorporating an epitaxial grid and operating under relaxed conditions could serve as the basis for the development of new metrological tools for the LNE, a public institute offering calibration services to industry, and in the longer term, graphene THz detectors could replace commercial detectors. More generally, a strong scientific impact is expected through open access publications resulting from the project on the growth and electronic properties of SiC and graphene, on the physics of graphene devices in general, and on THz detection and metrology applications. The impact of the project will be further enhanced by the presentation of webinars to a targeted audience of laboratories and companies likely to be interested in the results of the VanaSiC project in order to develop new knowledge and new products.

Many parameters are needed for monitoring quality of water resource. The most used are conductivity, temperature and pH. The aim of SApHIRE project is to show the industrial potential of a new water pH sensor based upon the concentration measurement of the H3O+ ions. The concept totally differs from the common method which consists in measuring the activity of the H3O+ ions. The device which does not contain any sensitive membrane and does not require any calibration, offers decisive advantages over the existing supply. The first objective of the project is to validate the concentration measurement provided by the sensor versus the referenced measurement given in activity. The second objective is the electronic and mechanical integration of the sensor and its validation. The valorisation structure involved in the project, will supervise the market study. The findings will enable us to consider, as appropriate, either assignments of patent licenses to companies in water analysis sector, or the creation of a start up.