“Anytime, anywhere, anything” has been the recent catch-phrase used by technology evangelists promising untethered wireless data flow not only among people, but also among devices of any imaginable sort. Trillions of autonomous devices are foreseen in this promise. While wireless sensor networks solve the wiring problem, we would still need to recharge or replace hundreds of batteries every day or supply the network infrastructure (e.g. base stations in the cellular world) with an ever increasing amount of power. Harvesting available ambient energy, such as solar, thermal or electromagnetic, to power wireless devices is the only viable solution to realize this promise in a sustainable manner. Building upon this requirement, in E-CROPS we study the design, optimization and implementation of a wireless network in which, nodes can harvest renewable energy and store the extra energy in their batteries, be it at the terminal or the network infrastructure side. In our theoretical study, we aim to formulate a mathematical theory of communication for energy harvesting networks, considering the communication network jointly with the energy network consisting of the harvesters and the storage units. We propose to design the protocols enabling the adaption of the physical and network layer design to the temporal changes in the available energy as well as to the distribution of the energy within the network. In parallel, we will study novel vibration and thermal energy harvesters as well as the appropriate storage units, and integrate these devices into a wireless sensor network application as a proof of concept for our scientific results. Bringing together researchers from theoretical and experimental backgrounds, we expect that both sides will benefit significantly from this interaction: The design of the harvesting and storage units will be adapted to the needs of the specific communication scenarios Practical energy and data profiles will be used to design and compare our algorithms, and finally A proof-of-concept sensor network application will be implemented to test the practicality of our ideas in real world

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is an ever-growing issue that threatens the effective prevention and treatment of an increasing range of infections caused by microorganisms, including various bacterial species. Classical antibiotics target essential functions, such as DNA, RNA or protein synthesis, in bacteria, thus imposing extreme selective pressures on the target microorganisms, which leads to the clonal emergence of escape mutants and contributes to the growing burden of AMR. In this context, targeting bacterial virulence, i.e. the capacity of pathogenic microorganisms to colonize and persist in their hosts, show great promise for developing alternative adjunct therapies to be used in combination with classical antibiotic treatments. In addition to escape mutants, which are genetically resistant to antimicrobials, antibiotic treatment is inefficient against sub-populations of so-called bacterial “persisters”, which are phenotypically tolerant to antibiotic treatment although their genome is identical to that of the rest of the bacterial population. The role of toxin-antitoxin (TA) systems in bacterial virulence and in the formation of bacterial persisters is now widely recognized, and targeting these systems is considered a most promising strategy to disarm pathogens and counter AMR. The overall goal of our project is to assemble a consortium of world-renown experts in bacterial persistence and TA systems in order to submit an Initial Training Network (ITN) proposal to the MSCA-ITN-2019 call. The proposal will combine research-based training in the field of antimicrobial research and development together with training in relevant transferable skills such as IP management, communication and entrepreneurship. Here we have assembled a core consortium of relevant experts of international repute. The MRSEI grant will allow us enlarging and consolidating this core consortium with additional complementary partners from the public and private sectors, either as direct beneficiaries or as associated partners. Combining the skills in microbial research and analytics with industrial quality management and transferable skills will increase the chances of our early stage researchers of productive and successful careers in their chosen sectors.

The project F*STAR (Financial STAbility and the Real economy) is an extensive research program in the fields of financial economics and macro-finance. It focuses on the relationship between the funding policy of firms (both financials and non-financials) and the real economy. While funding of banks and corporations is an extremely broad topics, we will focus in this project on short-term funding. This type of funding corresponds to a large and growing fraction of the balance-sheet of banks and corporations and it is inherently seen as the most fragile source of funding. Furthermore, there is a direct and fundamental relationship between corporation funding and the real economy: Indeed a drop in funding leads to reduced investment, lower performance and negatively impacts employment and economic growth. While empirical investigations still remain scarce in academia because of lack of data on these over-the-counter debt markets, our empirical analyses will exploit unique data provided to us by the Banque de France. The F*STAR research team comprises seven researchers from HEC Paris, GREGHEC (CNRS UMR 2959), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA), and Imperial College (UK). It combines experts from the fields of economics, banking, corporate finance, asset management, as well as regulation and spans both theory and empirics. The F*STAR project is divided into four subprojects or work packages, which capture various facets of the corporate funding market. Work package 1 - Stability of the Bank’s Wholesale Funding Market: In addition to deposits and central bank funding, commercial banks rely increasingly on financial markets (i.e., wholesale funding): interbank loans, repurchase agreements, and short-term debt securities sold to institutional investors. A prevailing view among economists and regulators is that wholesale funding is vulnerable to sudden stops, during which banks lose funding regardless of their credit quality. We will test empirically the resiliency of several segments of the wholesale funding market, as well as the effects of funding dry-ups on bank performance and on the macroeconomy. Work package 2 - Private Production of Safe Assets by Banks and Non-Financial Firms: Can claims on the private sector serve the role of safe assets? We will try to answer this question using high-frequency panel data on prices and quantities of European certificates of deposit (CD) issued by commercial banks, and commercial paper (CP) issued by non-financial institutions. We will measure the safety premium on all assets and study the joint-dynamics of privately-issued and government-issued safe assets. Work package 3 - Short-Term Debt Issuance of Non-Financial Firms: What is the rational for non-financial firms to massively use cash to repay their short-term debt at the end of the fiscal year? This phenomenon, which we will document for the first time in the literature, constitutes a puzzle for corporate finance theory as only net leverage, not gross leverage, is relevant to measure shareholders’ net wealth. We will investigate whether this pattern can be explained by a novel informational friction: asymmetric information between corporate insiders and outside financiers about the level of free cash holdings. Work package 4 - Theory of Collateral for Funding Markets: Why do some of the most developed debt markets rely so heavily on collateral? In this work package, we will theoretically explore the role of collateral in insulating creditors from the claims of other creditors, rather than from the actions of borrowers. This may imply that collateral should indeed be prevalent in environments where cash flow pledgeability is high, not low. Indeed, in such environments, taking on new debt is easier, leading creditors to require collateral as protection against debt dilution. We aim to develop a model based on that premise and explore its implications.

The increasing urbanization and motorization overcrowds cities with vehicles, causing traffic congestion with severe societal, economic, and environmental consequences. To alleviate congestion, currently deployed solutions utilize the limited number of available information sources deployed in the infrastructure to provide centralized solutions for road transportation systems (RTS). The emergence of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) into RTS (e.g. communication, sensing, positioning), promises the transformation of RTS into a fully connected world that allows seamless information exchange at an unprecedented scale and unlocks exciting opportunities. Nonetheless, the highly challenging nature of RTS (large-scale, dynamic and uncertain nature) combined with the expected explosion of data emanating from the Connected RTS (CRTS) environment, make the use of centralized processes intractable. This calls for a paradigm shift towards novel architectures, data analysis tools and control algorithms that enable real-time, fine-grained and distributed monitoring and control of CRTS. Within this scope, the proposed European Training Network (ETN), AgileWorld, aims to equip fifteen Early Stage Researchers with the theoretical and practical scientific competences, as well as transferable, innovation and entrepreneurial skills necessary for thriving careers in the burgeoning area of CRTS that underpins innovative technological interdisciplinary development, something not offered by existing EU research or training programmes. Towards this direction, AgileWorld ETN will build upon a network of internationally renowned academic and industrial experts in leading European organizations to provide a holistic research and training program to the early stage researchers, with focus towards practical case studies. AgileWorld will foster synergies between partners to allow cross-discipline and cross-partner training through targeted secondments at the ETN’s academic/non-academic partners. The MRSEI funding will serve to consolidate and to structure the porposal coordinated by a French university.