Population in developed countries is aging. Besides other socioeconomic effects, this significantly affects European health systems, as ageing-specific therapies and treatments have become important cost factors. In this context, hip replacements belong to one of the most frequent and costly treatments. Recent reports on mass failures of new types of hip prosthesis revealed insufficient understanding of physiological processes leading to prosthesis failure. Studies on hip prosthesis failures revealed complex processes leading to chemical degradation of implants, resulting in desorbed elements and ions entering the surrounding tissue, causing inflammation and loosening of hip prosthesis. The research needed to reveal important details of the body response to the implant is lacking of the incorporation of novel techniques and approaches. Techniques currently applied in hospitals, such as X-ray scans and optical tissue microscopies do not fully explain the effects of implants on the body physiology. Moreover, the screening of new types of implants before its introduction into clinic processes may lack of scientific understanding of possible destructive effects. Modern tissue microscopy techniques are promising providing elemental and chemical distribution of a tissue, with high sensitivities and lateral resolution. Micro Proton Induced X-ray Emission (microPIXE) allows determining the quantitative elemental mapping of a tissue and has been proved to be the best technique for element localization studies in biological tissues due to its capability of analysing at sub-cellular level the distribution of elements incorporated to biological tissue, due to a high sensitivity ranging down to 0.1 ppm level. The action will focus on investigating reasons of failures and rejections of hip replacements by application of advanced elemental microscopies to human tissue surrounding hip failures. Results may determine the origin of failure and avoid prosthesis rejection.

Europe’s transition to a decarbonised energy system, as outlined in the EU Green Deal, will radically transform how the EU generates, distributes, stores, and consumes energy. It will require virtually carbon-free power generation, increased energy efficiency, and the deep decarbonisation of transport, buildings, and industry. Europe is further boosting its green hydrogen ambitions to secure energy independence following the global geopolitical tensions and market instability. The current need to decarbonise our economy makes the search of new methods crucial to use chemicals, such as ammonia, that can be produced and employed as carbon-free (COx) hydrogen carrier. Dr. Milan Vukšić (applicant) will design and additively manufacture a modular, monolithic, multiscale ceramic catalytic reactor for magnetically heated COx-free hydrogen production with the fully electrified decomposition of ammonia. The project will be carried out at the Institute Jozef Stefan and the National Institute of Chemistry, Slovenia, under the supervision of Dr. Aljaž Iveković, Prof. Andraž Kocjan, and Prof. Blaž Likozar as consequence of a high level of interdisciplinary work. In contrast to the established stereolithography process, where ceramic filler particles are bound by a polymeric binder, the proposed project aims to form polymer-derived ceramic (PDC) structures by photopolymerisation of pre-ceramic polymers (PCPs) followed an additional heat treatment (pyrolysis) in collaboration with the TU Wien, supervised by Prof. Thomas Konegger. The main research focus will be on the additive manufacturing of ceramic catalytic reactor components with magnetic functionality induced by the in-situ formation of magnetic nanoparticles. The final goal of the project is to demonstrate the viability and advantages of the proposed approach for technical innovations and improvements in end systems that can use ammonia fuel.

TimeSmart project will investigate the applicability of the novel Age of Information metric in smart grid networks. While the metric has become a valuable tool for measuring the system's performance, its practical value and impact in the real-time system are left unanswered. This project seeks to remedy that by applying the metric to a system in which the timing of collected data, currently measured through jitter or latency, profoundly impacts management and control. The AoI offers a new perspective on how the system should collect and process information, as such decisions are also based on the context of processed information(their semantic nature). In turn, the new approach can offer an innovative way of improving the efficiency of renewable electrical energy supply and electrical loads by taking advantage of the available edge infrastructure. This project aims to adopt the AoI metric in smart grid networks to improve the energy transmission efficiency, achievable through more timely collected information, to save energy. The proposed research will be conducted by dr. Jernej Hribar and supervised by prof. Mihael Mohorčič, and dr. Carolina Fortuna from Institut Jožef Stefan. The applicant will also undertake a non-academic placement at ComSensus under the supervision of dr. Andrej Čampa.