VESYNECH
Determination of bacterial vesicles interactions in the most abundant marine cyanobacteria and its potential applications (H2020-MSCA-IF-2018-844891).
Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus are important contributors of global primary production in the ocean, as they are responsible for a significant fraction of carbon fixation in aquatic habitats. Moreover, these cyanobacteria together with other marine phototrophic microorganisms (diatoms and pico-and nanophytoplankton) are responsible for more than 50% of the oxygen production on Earth, highlighting the importance of these marine microorganisms.
In 2014, Steve Biller and Sallie Chisholm’s research team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (also known as MIT) discovered that marine cyanobacteria release vesicles or little “bags” that contain proteins, lipids and organic compounds, among other things, into the sea. Despite the interesting findings showing the versatile nature of Synechococcus, no study has explored the content and the possibility that vesicles in Synechococcus might provide gene transfer and/or protein/metabolite transfer between different bacteria. Moreover, the mechanism through which these DNA fragments, proteins or metabolites are first generated and then integrated into membrane vesicles needs to be considered. Finally, the content of bioactive compounds in vesicle of Synechococcus has not being studied yet, and could provide a source of novel compounds with potential activity. This gap in the knowledge of vesicles in phototrophs makes the VESYNECH project promising in terms of providing innovative and exciting results.
General objectives
The overarching goal of this project is to gain insight into the ecology and function of the membrane vesicles of the most abundant phototrophic cyanobacteria Synechococcus. One of the aims of VESYNECH is to understand the mechanism by which marine cyanobacteria release these small “packets” of genetic information and organic compounds. In the two years that the project will last for, they will study whether the secretion of these vesicles happens on a regular basis or if they are prompted by stimuli. Specific objectives of the project:
- Objective 1: To characterize the variety and composition of vesicles present in cultures of Synechococcus in response to stress.
- Objective 2: To identify the possible role of the Synechococcus vesicles in HGT.
- Objective 3: To explore possible changes in the transcriptome of the marine Synechococcus sp. PCC 7002 under the presence of vesicles of Synechococcus sp. WH 8102.
Role of the University of Cordoba
Project VESYNECH was born, led by the “Adaptations to nitrogen and carbon metabolism in Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus, BIO123” research group, a group with vast experience studying these marine microorganisms in the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Department at the University of Córdoba. All the objectives will be carried out by Dr. Muñoz-Marín during the two years of project.
In order to count and measure the size of these nanoparticles, they have Professor Francisco J. Romero Salguero from the Research Institute on Fine Chemistry and Nanochemistry (abbreviated to IUNAM in Spanish) at the University of Cordoba as a collaborator.
Supervisor: José Manuel García Fernández e-mail: jmgarcia@uco.es
Investigadora Principal: María del Carmen Muñoz Marín e-mail: b32mumam@uco.es
Página web del proyecto: http://www.uco.es/investigacion/proyectos/capitanavesy/index.php/es/
SMARTINCS
Self-healing, Multifunctional, Advanced Repair Technologies IN Cementitious Systems (H2020-MSCA-ITN-2019-860006).
SMARTINCS is a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Action started in December 2019 dealing with the implementation of new life-cycle thinking and durability-based approaches to the concept and design of concrete structures. Concepts such as self-healing concrete, repair mortars and grouts appear as key enabling technologies. In SMARTINCS, 15-entrepreneurial early-stage researchers will be trained in the development of innovative, multifunctional self-healing strategies for new concrete structures, and in the implementation of advanced repair technologies for repairing existing concrete infrastructures. In the Project, research institutes, pioneers in smart cementitious materials, works together with leading companies along the SMARTINCS value chain, and with certification and pre-standardization agencies. The collaborative efforts of all partners have two main focuses:
- Develop sustainable and durable concrete solutions for new and existing structures.
- Scientifically substantiate the durability, sustainability and robustness of the developed self-healing cementitious materials.
The planned activities within the ETN divided in a structure with 3 – work package structure. Training is given to the early stage researchers by their individual PhD projects which all fit within the scientific work packages 1-4, dealing with improved self-healing concrete (WP1), advanced local (self-)repair (WP2), durability, service life and sustainability (WP3) and technology transfer and entrepreneurship (WP4).
General objectives
Three main scientific objectives can be highlighted for SMARTINCS Project:
(i) To develop and model innovative self-healing strategies for bulk and local application, including optimization of mix designs and development of multi-functional self-healing agents with attention to cost, applicability and environmental impact.
(ii) To scientifically substantiate and model the durability of self-healed concrete and repaired systems for an accurate service life prediction and to integrate self-healing into innovative service-life based structural design approaches to foster the market penetration through an innovative life-cycle thinking.
(iii) To quantify and prove the eco-efficiency of newly developed smart concrete / mortars by life cycle assessment modelling
Role of the University of Cordoba
The University of Córdoba is responsible for the ESR 6 Project “Crystalline self-healing technology for non-shrinkage cementitious grouts in non-structural applications”, mainly contributing to the WP2. The main objective of UCO’s Project is the ad-hoc design of multifunctional non-shrinkage cementitious gouts with enhanced performance in specific non-structural applications:
- Grouts for pre-stressing strands incorporating corrosion inhibitors.
- Cementitious coatings with non-shrinkage crystalline grouts for improving the corrosion resistance of steel rebars.
- Cementitious non-shrinkage grouts incorporating antimicrobial activity based on the technology of Layered Double Hydroxides (LDH).
To accomplish these objectives, a collaborative work with other universities (PoliMi, UCam), and with the industry (Penetron) will be carried out.
Supervisor: Mercedes Sánchez e-mail: msmoreno@uco.es
Project website: https://smartincs.ugent.be/index.php
BIOCONTROL-A
BIOCONTROL OF AFLATOXIN CONTAMINATION USING ATOXIGENIC STRAINS FROM ALMOND AND PISTACHIO ORCHARDS (H2020-MSCA-IF-2014-658579)
Aflatoxins (AF), the most toxic and carcinogenic compounds among the mycotoxins, are mainly produced by the fungi Aspergillus flavus and A. parasiticus. Because these fungi are common soil residents of almond and pistachio orchards, these nuts are one of the main sources of human exposure to AF. The consumption of almond and pistachio has increased in recent years in the European Union (EU) due to their positive effects on the consumers’ health. Spain has the largest area (587.000 ha) under almond cultivation after USA and its pistachio growing-area is exponentially expanding. Contaminated batches of Spanish nuts by AFs have been frequently detected. Application of atoxigenic strains of A. flavus has successfully reduced crop AF-contamination in the USA and Africa.
This biological control strategy uses endemic atoxigenic A. flavus strains, considered best adapted, to displace the AF-producing fungi. Unfortunately, EU farmers do not have the benefit of this type of biological control technology since there are not registered atoxigenic strains in this area. The aim of current project is to: i) improve substrate and application methods of atoxigenic A. flavus; ii) select new biological control agents for their patent and future registration in EU and USA; and iii) construct mechanistic models of risk for AF-contamination. The expected results will have a positive impact improving food safety and the environment and securing economic benefits to EU farmers and agri-food industries. In addition, this project supports capacity building, provides the foundation to the fellow in pursuing his independent scientific career and strengthens collaboration with research groups from EU and USA, three small-medium enterprises (SEMs), and a spin-off company.
General objectives
The main gol is to find atoxigenic isolates of A. flavus, which could be used a potential Biological Control Agents.
Role of the University of Cordoba
Specific objectives are:
- Identify the risk factors associated to aflatoxin contamination in Andalusia region.
- Identify atoxigenic Andalusian isolates of A. flavus.
Supervisor: Antonio José Trapero Casas e-mail: ag1trcaa@uco.es
Investigador principal: Juan Moral Moral e-mail: juanmoralmoral@yahoo.es
GEN4OLIVE
Mobilization of Olive GenRes through pre-breeding activities to face the future challenges and development of an intelligent interface to ensure a friendly information availability for end users (H2020-IA-SFS-2020-101000427).
The GEN4OLIVE project is coordinated by the Cordoba University, and involves 16 interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary partners from 7 different countries: Spain, Morocco, France, Germany, Italy, Greece and Turkey. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101000427.
As its acronym shows, GEN4OLIVE aims to leverage olive Genetic Resources (GenRes) by bringing them to a higher level closer to breeders and markets. The overall goal of GEN4OLIVE is to accelerate the mobilization of olive GenRes and to foster pre-breeding activities by (1) developing a smart and user-friendly interface that will implement Artificial Intelligence utilities; and (2) enhancing breeders and growers’ participation through the implementation of two open calls for supporting pre-breeding activities and breeding plans.
GEN4OLIVE will develop collective pre-breeding activities aiming to in-depth characterize more than 500 worldwide varieties and 1000 wild and ancient genotypes around 5 topics: climate change, pests and diseases, production and quality, and modern planting systems. After integrating all results in the GEN4OLIVE interface, breeders and other end-users will have an effective tool for speeding up all kind of breeding programs. The combination of pre-breeding results with modern ICTs will enable the access of end-users to this valuable information.
General objectives
- Assessment of end users’ needs, and definition of evaluation protocols for working under harmonised and comparable techniques among partners.
- Cluster and link with the previous and on-going projects in olive sector.
- Exploration and characterization of the genetic resources of domesticated, wild and the ancient olives in Mediterranean basin.
- Evaluation of Environment X Genotype interaction and the determination of climate change effect in olive-growing sector.
- Building an intelligent interface based on machine learning and big data processing technology, which will be able to provide an easy and ready-to-use information to end users.
- Foster the involvement of SMEs in the pre-breeding activities through two open calls (Financial Support to Third Parties).
- Enhance the inter-actor cooperation: co-creation, capacity-building and results sharing.
Role of the University of Cordoba
UCO is the coordinator of this proposal and it will hold the Project Coordinator role, main responsible of the project. It will provide an academic multidisciplinary profile to the Consortium, being responsible of WP1, WP3, WP4, WP10. The main role in the aforenamed WPs is:
- The coordination and definition of the common and harmonized protocols for carrying out the technical work under comparable methodologies.
- Characterization of olive varieties that’s belong to UCO´s GB and of the wild genotypes collected in Spanish area.
- Development of tools such as bio-markers for accelerating the breeding process.
- Definition of the most urgent breeding lines to be performed.
- Preparation of the database with images of olive cultivars´ pits and diseases symptoms to develop the machine learning tools.
- Coordination of the consortium work.
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Coordinador: María Concepción Muñoz Díez
Correo electrónico de contacto: g62mudim@uco.es
Página web del proyecto: https://gen4olive.eu/, enlace CORDIS https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101000427
Share Beef
Creation of shared value for the beef supply chain from IoT and blockchain (H2020-IoF-2282300206-UC010)
The project “Creation of shared value for the beef supply chain from IoT and blockchain” (ShareBeef) is one of the use cases of the project “Internet of Food and Farm 2020” (IoF2020), coordinated by Wageningen University and Research.
ShareBeef aims to develop a technological framework based on Internet of Things (IoT), open data, massive data analysis (Big Data) and blockchains (blockchain) to enable the exchange of data along the whole production chain of beef (calf producers, feedlots, slaughterhouses, distributors and consumers) with a double objective:
- Increase the productive efficiency of the different processes in the chain, reducing their environmental impact.
- Improve the information on the production processes that reaches the consumer to meet their demands for information, promoting informed and responsible consumption.
The partners of the projects are: two technological partners (Digitanimal and Agricolus SMEs), an end user (NATRUS meat company) and the University of Córdoba. The demonstration farms are located in six countries: Spain, Portugal, Croatia, Ireland, Italy and Bulgaria.
General objectives
The main objectives of the project are:
- To monitor and optimize production conditions, health and animal welfare at the farm and fattening level.
- To control and optimize animal welfare during transport and slaughter.
- To provide consumers with better information about beef production conditions.
- To certify specific good production practices: grass meat, animal welfare, etc.
- To develop support systems for decision-making based on data from various segments of the production chain, enabling the improvement of production efficiency, sustainability and profitability.
- To develop data governance models that allow data sharing while preserving data privacy and ownership.
- To Increase trust between segments of the beef supply chain using blockchain.
Role of the University of Cordoba
The University of Córdoba acts in the project as a domain expert, carrying out the design and validation tasks of the precision livestock systems used in it. In addition, UCO is responsible for the design of decision support systems and the dissemination of project results.
Investigador Principal: Dolores C. Pérez Marín
Correo electrónico de contacto: dcperez@uco.es
Página web del proyecto: https://www.iof2020.eu/trials/meat/iot-and-blockchain-for-beef-supply-chain
WEDISTRICT
Smart and local reneWable Energy DISTRICT heating and cooling solutions for sustainable living (H2020-LC-SC3-2019-RES-8-857801)
The focus of WEDISTRICT is large-scale replication of best practice: better valorization of local resources, like renewable and waste heat by making District Heating and Cooling networks more efficient in relation to the use of new resources. In parallel, systems will evolve to provide even more flexible solutions by the integration of innovative molten-salts based thermal storage, the interaction with other energy networks (electricity and gas) and the involvement of end-users (operators and consumers) through ICT-based control and decision making.
The renewable air cooling unit proposed in WEDISTRICT, is a Desiccant Indirect Evaporative Renewable Cooling Unit, composed of an indirect evaporative cooler and a desiccant wheel that can independently control the air temperature and humidity in buildings, thereby optimizing indoor air conditions.
General objectives
The overall objective of the project is to demonstrate district heating and cooling (DHC) as integrated solutions that exploit the combination of:
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- Renewable energy sources.
- Thermal storage.
- Waste heat recycling technologies to satisfy 100% of the heating and cooling energy demand in new DHC and up to 60-100% in retrofitted DHC.
Role of the University of Cordoba
The University of Córdoba will be responsible for designing, manufacturing and testing an innovative renewable air cooling unit suitable for installation in a DHC. The idea is to take advantage of the thermal energy generated in a district heating to power an air cooling system, which has proved to work with low temperature coming from renewable energy sources.
Investigador Principal: Manuel Ruiz de Adana
Correo electrónico de contacto: manuel.ruiz@uco.es
Página web del proyecto: https://www.wedistrict.eu/
PI RURAL
Rural Water and Food Security (PI/2017/382-112)
The overall objective of the action is to support formulation and implementation of Chinese policies, legislation, standards and measures that will contribute enable better management, use and protection of groundwater resources and increased coverage of safe groundwater-based water supply in rural areas, thereby paving the way for European state-of-the-art business solutions and technologies.
General objectives
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- Efficient management of EU grants for improved rural water and food security
- Enabling Chinese policies, legislation and socio-economic priorities for sustainable water management, by efficient use, restoration and protection of groundwater resources in rural areas of China affected by water scarcity
- Protection and restoration of groundwater dependent eco-systems in karst areas
- Integrated measures to protect groundwater quality against diffuse pollution from agriculture
- Increased socio-economic efficiency in water allocation and use for irrigated agriculture (in areas with high competition for water)
- EU Water Technology Innovations applied to deliver safe groundwater-based domestic water supply in rural areas affected by groundwater pollution
- Managerial and technological measures to restore severely depleted groundwater aquifers
Investigador Principal: Julio Berbel Vecino
Correo electrónico de contacto: es1bevej@uco.es
GOTHAM
Governance tool for sustainable water resources allocation in the Mediterranean through Stakeholder’s collaboration (PRIMA-S1-2019-GOTHAM)
The overarching objective of the GOTHAM project is to develop and validate a user-driven and scalable tool that enables effective groundwater governance to preserve the quantity and quality of this strategic resource on the Mediterranean basin. One of the main strengths of the tool (GTool) is that it involves the different water users in a common framework where they can exchange information in order to reach the most optimal water governance at each point in time as well as in future scenarios. In this sense, this tool will be tested and validated by the own users, ensuring its potential replicability and transferability in other Mediterranean areas with similar geological and environmental constraints.
GOTHAM project presents a scalable and user-specific tool for decentralizing water resources management, including water availability and demand forecasting and their impact on groundwater balance and quality dynamics. GTool will also incorporate two key modules related to Managed Aquifer Recharge/remediation and agro-economic impact assessment, with the possibility of simulating several economic instruments for water policies. An optimised water allocation module will be developed to calculate the optimal Water Resource Mix, assuming socio-economic boundary conditions and several water availability and demand scenarios.
A broad range of impacts are expected as a consequence of project development, including the reduction of groundwater balance uncertainty, the implementation of cost-effectiveness criteria in water allocation as well as the recommendation of water strategies for increasing water resilience and security. Aquifer overexploitation and pollution will be analysed by applying Data Analytics algorithms to time series from data-loggers and remote sensing imagery. The development and validation of an user-based water allocation tool will boost the creation of GWUAs, which self-regulation offers tremendous potential for effective groundwater governance.
General objectives
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- Carry out comprehensive analysis and a complete diagnostic of the water balance and water quality dynamics in Mediterranean groundwater bodies, paramount to understanding the current management decisions and other natural causes that are leading to quantity and quality problems in aquifers and thus establish limits to the governance decisions that can be taken.
- Determine the best alternatives for groundwater quality and quantity improvement through an optimised allocation system, that takes into account different type of water resources (conventional vs non-conventional) and uses (agricultural, urban and industrial), temporal scales (short – daily operation – and mid/long term – infrastructure planning and management), and environmental, economic and societal impacts.
- Develop a Groundwater Governance Framework (GGF) that could be applied in all the Mediterranean countries.
- Effectively implement a set of economic policy instruments in groundwater management.
- Predict future water demand and drought events in the area of influence of the groundwater body and assess their derived groundwater quantitative impacts (over-abstraction and depletion) and chemical status degradation (seawater intrusion, transport of contaminants including nitrates and organic contaminants) in order to establish the need to change water management decisions with enough time.
- Calculate the potential feasibility and benefits of Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) and aquifer remediation as an additional groundwater governance decisions.
Investigador Principal: Julio Berbel Vecino
Correo electrónico de contacto: es1bevej@uco.es
Página web del proyecto: https://www.gotham-prima.eu/
ALive
Analytics for computation and visualization of liver resections (311393/AAU)
Planning liver surgical resections is an extremely complex task. In this process, surgeons decide the trajectory separating the healthy part of the liver from the part that will be resected. Although liver resection has been practiced for decades, among surgerons, there is still no consensus on what a good resection is. An underlying problem contributing to this lack of consensus is the fact that there are no formal methods to specify and communicate resection plsns—clinicians often use subjective descriptions (written or oral) or hand-drawings. In ALive, we believe that liver surgical practice needs computer-assisted tools allowing the surgeons to specify resection plans in a flexible way, thus accommodating different surgery planning techniques and cultures. We also believe that providing a way to represent resections in a formal way can contribute to a better evaluation and communication of resection plans. ALive is a research project funded by the IKTPluss program from The Research Council of Norway.
General objectives
ALive aims to improve liver surgery practice by researching new methods for planning and visualization of liver resections. The project will work on two different areas:
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- Generation Of resection plans using geometric modeling, AI and vasculature analysis.
- Formal representation and visualization of 3D resections in lower dimensions (2D).
Role of the University of Cordoba
UCO is responsible of the application of High Performance Computing techniques in Liver Resection Planning and Liver Analytics and Visualization.
Project Manager: Rafael Palomar (Oslo University Hospital)
Investigador Principal UCO: Joaquín Olivares
Correo electrónico de contacto: olivares@uco.es
Página web del proyecto: https://alive-research.no/
Personal: https://alive-research.no/people
FruitFlyNet II
Commercialization of an Automated Monitoring and Control System against the Olive and Med Fruit Flies of the Mediterranean Region (ENI-CBC-MED-2019-B_A.2.1_0043)
This Project aims to facilitate clean tech sharing between research Institutions and SMEs, by commercializing prototypes and new services for effective e-monitoring and ground spray control of specific pests in Med basin.
General objectives
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- Support transfer of clean technological advances and innovations in the agro-environmental sector aiming in the development, demonstration, and popularization of cleaner research products and processes, and strengthening the linkages among research, producers, SMEs/SFBs, and IPM industry.
- Pre-commercialization of cleaner products and processes articulated to produce a location-aware set of services for e-monitoring and ground spray control solutions for Medfly and olive fruit fly, in order to create business opportunities for research results.
- Increase dialogue, and sustainable cross-border networking among spin-offs, SMEs/SFBs, IPM industry, and stakeholders, under the living labs’ framework on innovative IPM solutions for effective environmental policy strategies based on the people-to-people approach and institutional capacity building.
Role of the University of Cordoba
The main role of the University of Cordoba (UCO) is to contribute to achieving the general objectives. However, the specific tasks of UCO within the project are:
1) UCO leads the WP6 (Pre-commercialization) and will organize the preparations towards the commercialization of the LAS prototypes based on the outputs of the other WPs. Furthermore, UCO will establish a spin-off.
2) UCO will implement a wide-area OliveFlyNet site in Spain, which aims to field data collection and digitization of all sites.
Investigador Principal: Enrique Quesada Moraga
Correo electrónico de contacto: cr2qumoe@uco.es