Constraining the abundance and the properties of the first galaxies is an important challenge for modern cosmology. Distant star-forming sources at redshifts z~7-12 could have been responsible for a significant part of the cosmic reionization. Detailed studies of these 'primordial' systems require the use of new ground-based and space facilities (e.g. Herschel, VLT/Hawk-I, GTC/EMIR, HST/ WFC3), in preparation for future surveys with ALMA. The goal of our project is precisely to take advantage of our privileged access to these key facilities (recently granted or guaranteed time) to build up the first representative spectroscopic sample of galaxies at redshift z>7, together with an additional sample of candidates based on photometric redshifts and wide multi-wavelength coverage. The method proposed is similar to the one successfully developed in our pilot program with ISAAC/VLT (Pello et al. 2004, Richard et al. 206) and HST/ACS+NICMOS (Kneib et al 2004, Richard et al 2008), using lensing clusters as natural gravitational telescopes. We propose a systematic exploration of this new observationally unknown territory. Multi-wavelength coverage should allow us to determine the physical properties of extremely distant sources, such as star formation rate, extinction, stellar population, and possibly also metallicity and IMF. Various other inferences (e.g. on luminosity functions and luminosity density) will also be made from the pure photometric observations of high-z galaxy candidates. The expected results, probing the Universe at ages of ~ 450-800 Myr, should have profound implications on our knowledge of distant possibly even primeval galaxies, galaxy formation, cosmological reionization, and the early Universe. New deep imaging data of blank fields (CFHT/WIRCAM WUDS Survey) and eight lensing clusters will be used, coming from our observing programs recently accepted with Spitzer, Herschel, LABOCA/APEX, and HAWK-I/VLT. We have also access to Chandra X-ray observations, in addition to a large database, including HST images, from our own observing programs and archives. The project also benefits from the new generation of near-IR spectrographs (Flamingos2/Gemini-S and EMIR/GTC) for the precise redshift determination and subsequent emission-line studies. Galaxy candidates at z>7 will be selected from deep optical and near-IR imaging. Other multi-wavelength data (including X-rays, IR, mm bands) will be used to further characterize them. Strong lensing clusters are more efficient than present blank fields for detailed studies of galaxies in the z~7-12 domain. However, both blank and lensing fields are needed in order to constrain the Luminosity Function, allowing us to achieve a complete view of the first star-forming galaxies. Present day ultra-deep surveys (either blank or lensing fields) are dramatically small in terms of effective surface. For this reason, increasing the number of lensing and blank fields with ultra-deep near-IR photometry, as proposed here, is essential to get tighter constraints on the abundance and physical properties of z>7 starburst galaxies. Gathering a representative sample of galaxies at z~7-12 is also of great interest for future observations of primeval galaxies with ALMA.

Pacific societies are engaged in processes of intense social change that afforded novel theoretical approaches. One theme became central: the politics of identity and tradition within the context of nation building. This type of complex situation is not limited to the Pacific, but research has often been inspired by the practices and cultural structures of this region, and in particular by the Melanesian situation, in order to rethink the relationship between 'traditional' societies and globalisation. Research on 'Kastom' and 'Neo-ritualizations' has been particularly interesting in this respect. Many reformulations of the interaction between local and national identities attempting to concord with the imposed construction of the democratic nation have been analyzed. Often, these reformulations take the form of actualizations, reinterpretations or inventions of ritualized practices. -- However, these studies have not allowed to fully understand the difficulties Pacific countries encounter in their processes of nation building. They remain inefficient in front of structures that are disintegrated as quickly as they appeared. We propose to reopen this theme of research - which is central for the social sciences as well as for the Pacific countries themselves - but we are proposing a new hypothesis. The mechanisms of nation building under the pressure of western nations cannot be fully understood if research is not oriented towards the dialectic at work between local power structures and the fabrication of their national representation. -- A version of this project was submitted during the last call for proposals ANR 'Blancs'. Despite the numerous positive points underlined in the reports, our project has not been selected because of the following main reasons: the problematic and the comparative methodology were not sufficiently explained. The project is now explicit with respect to the context and our hypotheses, as well as with what concerns the necessary comparative methodology embraced in our project. The study we are going to undertake is concerned with the local (and not the national) strategies that express themselves within local (and not national) power structures in order to study particular cases in which we analyze the 'nationalization' of elements of local (and not national) identities. We are approaching this question from three angles: the local political hierarchies and strategies that frame local expressions; the local processes of attempts to nationalize these expressions; and the exogenous constraints limiting these expressions. Henceforth, the nation is included in our project only as the ultimate ambition of these local strategies. It is the means through which these ambitions are expressed and constructed locally that will retain our attention. Our project has thus to be considered complementary to research undertaken in the domain of nation building itself, decolonization or migration within the Pacific. --We will concentrate on particular cases within three pacific states or territories (Vanuatu, Fiji and New Caledonia). Despite de distinctiveness of their historical contexts and the distant geographical situations, we advance the hypothesis that the strategies that work towards the crystallization of local particularities and that have the ambition to be 'nationalized' are in these three countries or territories comparable. It may even be possible to speak of a 'Melanesian way' of national integration of local particularities. Far from attempting to establish a compromise between various forms of cultural expressions, or from inventing a common theme in which each particular expression would be able to find its identity, this 'Melanesian way' rather attempts to superimpose, similar to a patchwork, particular local expressions which remain intact but de-contextualized within the national level. If this hypothesis is verified, nation building cannot proceed through the outgrowth from local conditions, but has to be conceived as an agglomerate of local reductions in which the sentiment of national belonging must be expressed though the sentiment of a local belonging. The nation cannot be 'One' for and through itself, it is not a hybrid construction as well, but it would arrange for distinguishable anchor points of recognizable local identities. -- The call for project 'ANR Blanc' has the aim to 'provide a significant impulse to ambitious scientific projects which position themselves favorably within the international competition'. The international positioning of our project is undeniable. It integrates researchers and exchanges that strongly trespass the French national limits. It also provides for a federation of researchers exceeding even the partners of this project. Our project is also ambitious and 'risky' in a positive sense, as it engages in situational comparative studies guided by a shared and strong hypothesis and a complex but clear problematic.

New advances in science and medicine help us gain ground against certain infectious diseases, yet new infections continue to emerge that spread rapidly into the population and frequently reach pandemic proportions causing significant human and economic costs. Computational epidemiology, as an interdisciplinary field integrating complex systems with statistical physics approaches, computational sciences, mathematical epidemiology, Information Communication Technologies (ICT) and Geographic Information Systems, can help confronting this reality by offering new tools as important as medical, clinical, genetic or molecular diagnosis tools – namely, computational models. Massive datasets describing human activities are becoming available, thanks to pervasive new technologies leaving behind digital traces of individual behaviors. Increasingly powerful CPU capabilities allow us to store and rationalize these data, and solve sophisticate intensive algorithms to describe complex spreading processes. The product of the ICT and “Big Data” revolution has seen in this field the development of realistic computational models for the simulation of infectious disease spread, providing a synthetic framework where to conduct experiments not feasible in the real world. With less than 10 years since the first publications, models have offered an additional insight in response planning. The progress has been dramatic. As a by-product, however, such progress has also created an increased demand for quantitative, realistic, detailed and reliable data-driven computational models for the simulation of epidemic spread to guide decision-making processes. Used for the first time during an influenza pandemic event in the 2009 H1N1 case, models have indeed also uncovered their current limits. While intrinsically multi-scale and unfolding at several different spatial and temporal levels – from human-to-human transmission, to population level, space and mobility, up to the environment – infectious diseases transmission has been modeled so far by targeting specific geotemporal scales, typically treating each of them separately. Our ability to comprehensively understand the propagation and react to it is critically challenged; social and behavioral factors describing human behaviors, as well as how communities are structured and how they react to the environmental, technological, political and cultural aspects, are all layers that intrinsically interact with the biological layer of pathogen transmission, and, most importantly, with the intervention strategies put in place to control and mitigate the epidemic. Can we harmonize the multiple scales, interlinked one to each other, and intrinsically relevant for the description of the spread of infectious diseases in human population? The HarMS-flu project proposes an interdisciplinary research effort aimed at answering this question, with the potential to transform our understanding of the population-disease-environment system and our ability to plan/react/control a newly emerging pandemic. We plan to (i) collect, analyze and understand hosts’ interactions and behaviors at different scales and under different conditions (e.g. during an epidemic or in the absence of it), as well as epidemiological data; (ii) formulate theoretical approaches and develop computational frameworks for the harmonization of the different scales at play, informed by the data collected, and assess their predictive power; (iii) develop a data-driven multi-scale computational platform, integrating the data and modeling knowledge acquired in the previous directions of the project, for the simulation of an infectious disease spread and possible interventions. By creating a collaborative framework among modelers, developers, medical doctors, epidemiologists, and public health professionals, HarMS-flu will reach a today unmet modeling capability to provide informed guidelines for an influenza pandemic spreading in France.

The main objective of this project is to better understand and interpret the influence of some phenomena associated to breaking waves in micro-wave ocean active and passive remote sensing. These phenomena encompass various aspects of the ocean surface: non-gaussian waves, steep and breaking waves, foam formation and whitecaps. Incorporating these effects in remote sensing models is essential for the retrieval procedure of oceanic geophysical parameters (sea surface temperature and salinity, winds, currents). Yet, the signature of breaking waves and related phenomena in the microwave domain is not well understood. The difficulty lays in the variety of involved phenomena and their different contribution according to the remote sensing configurations. Today, there is no global hydrodynamic and electromagnetic model to describe the micro-wave interaction with the sea surface in presence of breaking waves. Reaching this goal implies a double challenge : 1) Theoretical approach. We propose a unified theoretical framework which can take into account all the relevant aspects of breaking waves microwave ocean remote sensing at moderate and strong winds. This description will include non-Gaussian wave statistics, the occurrence of breaking and resulting whitecaps. At the same time, it will remain sufficiently versatile from an analytical and numerical point of view. It will be combined with the latest developments in terms of scattering models. The typical configurations of remote sensing experiments will be addressed: active and passive sensing at moderate incidence (relevant for satellites and aircrafts) and active sensing at low-grazing angles (relevant for coastal and shipboard radars). 2) Experimental approach. We propose an experimental validation by co-localizing a maximum number of simultaneous measurements in the different configurations: in situ measurements, satellite data, optical images, radar and radiometric sensing at different bands. This study will rely on several existing datasets: - a recent radar campaign in L band at grazing angles (LSEET) - data from the CETP airborne scatterometer (STORM) and radiometer (CAROLS) - CERSAT satellite data: ASAR ENVISAT images, co-localized data from the QuickScat scatterometer, the WindSat radiometer and TOPEX and JASON altimeters. These data will be completed by an airborne campaign specifically designed for the means of the project. Since this study has a strong potential in spatial applications, it will be restricted to off-shore zones. Finite-depths aspects and bathymetric breaking will not be considered. The proposed team (LSEET, CETP, LOS) meets all required expertises to fulfil this study: hydrodynamic and electromagnetic modelling, spatial remote sensing, sea micro-wave active and passive remote sensing. Key words : ocean microwave remote sensing, breaking, foam, whitecap, sea surface radar cross section, sea surface emissivity.