This action supports physical and blended mobility of higher education students and staff from EU Member States and third countries associated to Erasmus+ to any country in the world. Students in all study fields and cycles can take part in a study period or traineeship abroad. Higher education teaching and administrative staff can take part in professional development activities abroad, as well as staff from the field of work in order to teach and train students or staff at higher education institutions.

The ANR MEDSALT project aims to consolidate and expand a scientific network recently formed with the purpose to use scientific drilling to address the causes, timing, emplacement mechanisms and consequences of the largest and most recent 'salt giant' on Earth: the late Miocene (Messinian) salt deposit in the Mediterranean basin. After obtaining the endorsement of the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) on a Multiplatform Drilling Proposal (umbrella proposal) in early 2015, the network is planning to submit a site-specific drilling proposal to drill a transect of holes with the R/V Joides Resolution in the evaporite-bearing southern margin of the Balearic promontory in the Western Mediterranean - the aim is to submit the full proposal before the IODP dealine of April 1st 2017, following the submission of a pre-proposal on October 1st 2015. Four key issues will be addressed: 1) What are the causes, timing and emplacement mechanisms of the Mediterranean salt giant ? 2) What are the factors responsible for early salt deformation and fluid flow across and out of the halite layer ? 3) Do salt giants promote the development of a phylogenetically diverse and exceptionally active deep biosphere ? 4) What are the mechanisms underlying the spectacular vertical motions inside basins and their margins ? Our nascent scientific network will consit of a core group of 22 scientists from 10 countries (7 European + USA + Japan + Israel) of which three french scientists (G. Aloisi, J. Lofi and M. Rabineau) play a leading role as PIs of Mediterranean drilling proposals developed within our initiative. Support to this core group will be provided by a supplementary group of 21 scientists that will provide critical knowledge in key areas of our project. The ANR MEDSALT network will finance key actions that include: organising a 43 participants workshops to strengthen and consolidate the Mediterranean drilling community, supporting the participation of network scientists to seismic well site-survey cruises, organising meetings in smaller groups to work on site survey data and finance trips to the US to defend our drilling proposal in front of the IODP Environmental Protection and Safety Panel (EPSP). The MEDSALT drilling initiative will impact the understanding of issues as diverse as submarine geohazards, sub-salt hydrocarbon reservoirs and life in the deep subsurface. This is a unique opportunity for the French scientific community to play a leading role, next to our international partners, in tackling one of the most intellectually challenging open problems in the history of our planet.

The overall objective of SWRIPS project is to increase the efficiency, sustainability and competitiveness of the water usage in the agri-food supply chain (SC) in the EU-Med area under a circular economy approach aimed to saving water and minimize the external use of resources, avoiding further contamination of land and water. SWRIPS addresses the thematic “Water Management - Prevent and reduce land and water salinization and pollution due to agri-food activities”. It aims to recover the wastewater produced in the agri-food processing and to reuse the purified water for fertigation purpose while at the same time recovering the substances produced in the process as a matrix for fertilizer, thus putting in place a virtuous cycle that reduces the overall consumption of freshwater, guarantees water availability to farmers, reduce soil drying out and the overall amount of additional fertilizers, is cost effective both for agri-food industries and farmers and, finally, is environmental and human-health friendly. SWRIPS will achieve it by implementing a circular economy and management system based on a Life Cycle Assessment: the environmental impact would be considered along the entire production chain, from the cultivation to the food processing and end-of-life water cycle. SWRIPS aims to demonstrate the possibility to -reduce the problem of scarcity of freshwater and of excessive salinization of the soil and contamination of aquifers, particularly critical in the Mediterranean areas, through the recovery of agri-food industry wastewater for fertigation; -reduce the need of external fertilizers and therefore the presence of nitrates, phosphates, sulphates etc. through the re-use of water and excess sludge produced in the purification process; - provide, thanks to an innovative integrated monitoring system, a continuous control of the quality of purified water, also guaranteeing the possibility of early warning in case of excessive pollutant levels (organic components, pesticides, metals) in any of the purification phases - control, through microbiology and chemical-physical analyses, all the relevant water, soil and crop parameters involved in the process to define fertiliser application better tailored to crop needs, soil conditions, and the agroecosystem's nitrogen cycle. - develop a flexible and cost-effective system that allows an optimized use based on crop seasonality and characteristics of the water to be treated, typical of the agri-food industry under study. SWRIPS identifies 3 fundamental innovative technical elements: -an innovative multi-stage purification system based on aerobic granular biomass and nanocomposite and photocatalyst based filters to remove pollutants; -an integrated test system for continuous monitoring of the physical and microbio-chemical parameters of the purified water, consisting of a compact solid-state UV spectroscopy apparatus and visible sensing system for early warning; -the usage of innovative deep-learning algorithms to optimize the whole water/crop cycle and reduce water footprint and environmental impact on water basins, soil and crop itself. SWRIPS will test the system in three sites and different agri-food SCs: citrus in Sicily, tomato canning in Tunisia and oil industry in Algeria. SWRIPS foresees a very strong consortium combining expertise in the development and set-up of innovative wastewater treatment and sensors with those of control software development and advanced optimization algorithms. SWRIPS partners have documented experience in quality water and fertilization crop control. These experiences are complemented by the technical-engineering ones on water distribution. An added value for SWRIPS is the presence of the end-users of the process: agricultural consortia and agri-food industries. This will allow not only to test the system in the laboratory and through software models but also to test its functionality in the field, in different operating and environmental conditions

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is associated with various negative health consequences including increased risk of heart disease, hypertension and daytime sleepiness causing road accidents. The economic burden of OSA is rising as almost 1 billion people worldwide are estimated to have OSA. The current diagnostic metric, however, relates poorly to these symptoms and comorbidities. It merely measures the frequency of breathing cessations without assessing OSA severity in any other physiologically relevant way. Furthermore, the clinical methods for analyzing PSG signals are outdated, expensive and laborious. Due to this, the majority of OSA patients remain without diagnosis or have an inaccurate diagnosis leading to sub-optimal treatment. Thus, it is evident that more personalized diagnostics are required including predictive and preventive health care and patient participation. The SLEEP REVOLUTION aims to develop machine learning techniques to better estimate OSA severity and treatment needs to improve health outcomes and quality of life. These techniques are implemented to high-end wearables developed in this project to alleviate the costs and increase the availability of PSGs. Finally, we aim to design a digital platform that functions as a bridge between researchers, patients and healthcare professionals. We will achieve these ambitious goals throughout extensive collaboration between sleep specialists, computer scientists and industry partners. The collaboration network consists of over 30 sleep centers working together to provide the needed retrospective data (over 10.000 sleep studies). The multi-center prospective trials involve experts and end-users to assess and validate the new SLEEP REVOLUTION diagnostic algorithms, wearables and platforms. With the commitment of the European Sleep Research Society and Assembly of National Sleep Societies (over 8000 members), we have the unique possibility to create new standardized guidelines for sleep medicine in the EU.