Research News - September / October 2023 #15

September 2023 - Florence Bistagne

Florence Bistagne is a senior lecturer in the ICTT (Cultural Identity, Texts and Theatricality) laboratory. She is a specialist in written cultures and a historian of Romance languages (Latin, Greek, Italian, Neapolitan and Catalan) from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, with a particular focus on the Kingdom of Naples (1442-1503). She edits, transcribes and translates historical and literary sources. Florence Bistagne recently obtained ANR funding for a collaborative research project entitled LUXART on luxury and the arts in the kingdom of Naples during this period.

>> Discover her portrait

October 2023 - Stéphane Nottin

Stéphane Nottin is Professor of Exercise Physiology in the STAPS department, and in the Laboratory of Experimental Cardiovascular Physiology (LaPEC). His research focuses on cardiac adaptations to physical exercise. The aim is firstly to understand how the heart, which is put under great strain during exercise, gradually adapts after many years of training. The aim is also to better understand what the limits may be in certain extreme situations.

>> Discover her portrait

The ANR LUXART project: "Consuming, describing and theorising luxury and the arts between Spain and Italy: the kingdom of Naples in the 15th century".

Trials are continuing with the DTNUM and the Bureau de l'Alerte, la Sensibilisation et l'Éducation des Publics (BASEP) of the Ministry of the Interior and Overseas France. The project team (coordinated by J. Douvinet) took part in 42 warning exercises organised by numerous prefectures in France between June 2022 and June 2023, simulating floods, various industrial accidents, dam failures, a tsunami or an act of terrorism. More than 18,250 responses were collected to an online questionnaire, and the results are currently being processed, showing some interesting trends:
1) While 75 % of people who received an audible notification were surprised, 42 % were stressed and 39% were afraid;
2) The absence of clear, prioritised instructions led to discrepancies of almost 25 % in declarations of sheltering or evacuation;
3) The phrase "Leave your children safely at school" halves the number of people who behave in this way in the event of a real alert.
The team needs input from other disciplines (applied linguistics, sociology, IT, management sciences), so if you are interested, please contact the team: johnny.douvinet@univ-avignon.fr

For further information:
>> The ANR project
>> Experiments with FR-Alert

On 20 September 2023, the French Academy of Agriculture awarded the Xavier Bernard scientific prize and the prizes for final dissertations.
Omel Banin ABOU DAYArepresented by Fabienne Trollard (INRAE), an IMAS Master's student, received the dissertation prize for his thesis entitled: "Utilisation des QTL confant une résistance au mildiou : cartographie générique dans une descendance interspécifique de tomate et introgression dans un fond générique cultivé". We congratulate him and wish him all the best for the future.
>> More info

Students in the IMAS International Master's programme went back to school on 13 September.
This year, the students come from Pakistan, Uganda, Germany and many other countries.
Ten Master's students receive a scholarship for excellence.

>> Find out more about the International Master's Degree in Agrosciences

 The AgroSciences&Sciences doctoral school at Avignon University is organising an event on Friday 24 November from 2pm on the theme ofprofessional integration of young doctors in companies. Former doctoral students from the ED will share their post-doctoral professional experience in different types of company (industrial groups, SMEs, start-ups). There will also be a session/round table dedicated to entrepreneurship. Finally, companies from the region will also be presenting their motivations for hiring PhDs and their expectations.  

The aim of this half-day event is to raise the profile of doctoral degrees within companies. It is important to raise awareness of the advantages and benefits available to companies that recruit young PhDs.

This event will provide an opportunity for fruitful exchanges between companies and those involved in research and innovation in tomorrow doctoral students.

> Registration
> Download the programme

On 12 September, the annual symposium of the Agorantic Research Federation. This year's theme was research data ". The aim of this interdisciplinary meeting was to discuss the issues surrounding the collection and use of open data, and the solutions found to address them. Experts from various disciplines shared their experiences and successes in using data (open or otherwise) to answer complex questions.

The event was also an opportunity to announce the appointment of Agorantic's new directors: Pierre-Henri Morand, Professor of Economics (.JPEG laboratory) and Vincent Labatut, Senior Lecturer (HDR) in Computer Science (LIA).

Alice Châteaua teacher-researcher in microbiology in the SporAlim team (UMR SQPOV), is a winner of the : Young researchers (JCJC) in the 2023 generic call for projects in the "food and food systems" category. Its research project is called BClysin :
"The use of endolysins to describe envelope biosynthetic pathways and to eliminate biofilms of Bacillus cereus" . To find out more about Alice Château, go to his portrait taken in March 2023.

>> Find out more about the AAPG 2023

Céline JoliotAssistant Research and Training Engineer specialising in chemical analysis and prevention assistant in the Chemistry Department of the Science, Technology and Health Faculty of the University of Avignon, as part of the team. IRPNC of theIMBEThe French Minister for Education, Research and Science, Jean-Louis Dupuis, has just been awarded the rank of Chevalier in the Ordre des Palmes Académiques for her commitment to teaching and research.

Its research focuses on the study and characterisation of artistic and archaeological heritage materials, with particular emphasis on natural substances and their degradation phenomena, using chromatographic and spectroscopic techniques and alteration processes.

His commitment to the company is explained by his various roles:

• Elected to the Research Committee (2019-2023)
• Elected to the University Board (2015-2019)
• Staff representative on the Specialised Training Committee on Health, Safety and Working Conditions (FSSSCT) in 2023
• Former CHSCT representative (2013-2022) including secretary (2020-2021)
• elected to the board of the Comité Associatif des Personnels de l'Université d'Avignon (CASPUA) (2015-19 / president: 2012-2015).

>> See information on the IMBE website
>> The Order of Academic Palms

Léa Saby, second prize for the best poster at the 65ᵉ annual congress of the International Society of Plant Sciences.

Léa Sabya first-year doctoral student atMediterranean Institute of Biodiversity and Ecology (IMBE)team IRPNCand CIFRE contract with the company Gagneraudwon second prize for best poster at the 65ᵉ Congrès annuel de la International Society of Plant Sciences held in Coffs Harbour, Australia from 02 to 08 September 2023. His poster entitled "Restoring a Mediterranean grassland by sowing and reinstalling the original stone cover". is the result of her Master 2 thesis, which involved a long-term reassessment of the effects of an ecological restoration operation carried out on the Crau plain (Bouches-du-Rhône, France) in the early 2000s. In particular, it shows that the reintroduction of the dominant herbaceous species and the re-establishment of the original cover of pebbles on the soil are not enough, even after 20 years, to restore all the biodiversity of the vegetation and soil after the cultivation of a Mediterranean steppe that is unique in the world.