Tourism, recreation, fishing, marine aquaculture, and many other economic activities depend on the diverse marine ecosystems globally. However, a combination of factors such as global warming, ocean acidification, and increment of cyclones in recent years have led to the aggravating degradation of natural reefs, one of the most varied marine ecosystems on Earth. Artificial reefs (AR) are widely used for habitat restoration, ecological development, and coastline protection. Concrete is the most successful AR material, but it generates substantial CO2 emissions, has high contamination, and has low bio-receptivity. Botanical concrete developed by author during PhD study is based on the concept of a circular economy with 100% responsible use of waste materials and its carbon negative and non-toxic characteristics provide exciting potential in building the green infrastructure in ocean. This research aims to enhance the durability, bioreceptivity and versatility of wood-waste-based botanical concrete to create a green route for the design of the new generation of multifunctional eco-friendly AR for coastal protection and coral restoration. Based on nutrition, water quality and settlement substrate test in marine environment (lab-level) the raw materials are selected. Followed by formation design through advanced simulation, Computed Tomography scanning and experiments on durability and mechanical performance, and life cycle assessment, the prototype of AR will be tailored to achieve optimal density for easy installation, high resilience in storms, superior capability for coral larval settlement and biodiversity. The results will revolutionize the way in which ARs are made and boost the efficient use of recycled resources and alleviate climate change by moving into a clean circular blue economy. The project will contribute to the EU’s sustainable blue economy strategies, including decarbonization, circular economy, biodiversity, climate adaptation, and sustainable food.

About one-fifth of the world's greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture. Much of this relates to livestock used for animal-based foods. Rather than arguing for increased efficiency, MidWay probes the concept of sufficiency to explore its potential for reducing human impacts on Earth's biosphere while preserving overall welfare, i.e., its potential for defining a 'middle way' between 'too little' and 'too much'. To do this, MidWay studies the cases of meat and milk in China. While meat was always a high-status product, milk was historically considered a 'barbarian' food, and most Chinese were intolerant to it. Both products were scarcely consumed in Chinese history but have boomed in popularity over the past 40 years. While often thought about as a change of consumer preferences, it has taken a concerted effort by the Chinese government and domestic and international actors to make both products integral to Chinese food practices. Seeing China as a strategic research site to ask questions about the supply and demand of animal foods, the MidWay project hypothesises that what has made meat and milk integral to Chinese food practices might also be 'otherwise', i.e., opening up a possibility for a future disembedding of meat and milk from food practices. Thus, using a constructivist inspired lens, MidWay makes use of practice theory and 'systems of provision' to study the normalisation of animal foods in China, particularly since 1978, with China's opening up. The ultimate objective is to probe the concept of sufficiency as a useful organising principle to achieve reduced consumption - highlighted through the sub-objectives of understanding how meat and milk have been rendered desirable in China. Perspectives that show how food is connected to social, technical and cultural variables, and the system that provides food, are lacking internationally and could lead to changes through facilitating a multifaceted policy response.

PALMERA will address the low power and fault tolerant cache memory design bottleneck through a combination of hardware and software approaches. The proposal has two research directions: (1) Develop a cache memory hardware equipped with novel circuit designs to keep the reliability during voltage scaling. (2) Leverage the software application level to manage energy consumption. A methodology will be developed that enables the programmer to identify non-critical data structures and program phases that are not memory-bound. Through a system scenario design methodology, this information is used to manage the settings of the underlying novel hardware to increase error resilience and save energy. The focus is on memories implemented for embedded systems in areas such as medical imaging and space applications, typically having strict requirements for both energy consumption and reliability. These types of applications are increasingly becoming multitasked and dynamic; hence, data intensive and fluctuating with respect to resource requirements. Available static analysis and worst-case design margins cannot any longer meet the power and reliability constraints. Compared to previous techniques that typically focus on either hardware or software when optimizing for both energy and reliability, PALMERA adopts a multidisciplinary holistic approach where hardware and software levels of the system are combined. Working towards these challenging project goals not only moves the research front forward, but also gives the Experienced Researcher excellent opportunity to develop her skills and career potential. The combination of PALMERA research, with high quality training at the host institution and during secondment, strengthens her knowledge and experience and provides the best opportunity for her to gain a position as a senior researcher in industry or academia. The goal is for PALMERA to be an enabler for the next step, being a proposal for a European Research Council grant.

Recent severe heatwaves and prolonged drought negatively affect agricultural crop fitness and biomass, threatening global food security. Therefore, there is an urgent need to enhance crop resilience against environmental stress to reduce crop loss. The cell wall is of key interest here due to its role as the primary barrier against environmental stress. However, improving crop tolerance via cell wall manipulation remains challenging due to plasticity, which determines the wall's ability to alter its shape, composition, and viscoelasticity (stiffness and viscosity). Plasticity seems to be modulated by the cell wall integrity (CWI) maintenance mechanism. A mechanism that continuously monitors the functional integrity of cell walls by utilizing a wide range of CWI sensors to sense damages in the cell wall and initiate wall remodeling. Any impairment in the CWI triggers adaptive responses, including the production of phytohormones. Abscisic acid (ABA) is one of the key phytohormones that regulate plant adaptive responses against abiotic stresses. Although the potential of the CWI maintenance mechanism modulating cell wall plasticity via ABA signaling has been proposed, the underlying mechanism remains largely unexplored. Therefore, investigating interactions between these processes may lead to the development of novel strategies to improve plant tolerance against abiotic stress. In this project, I will investigate the relationship between changes in ABA and cell wall viscoelasticity controlled by the CWI maintenance mechanism. I will also identify and characterize novel components of the CWI maintenance mechanism responsible for the induction of ABA production. Furthermore, the knowledge produced here will facilitate the identification of corresponding orthologs in commercial crops that can be used to develop strategies to improve crop performance.