Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-actions-marie-curie-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet Trust Radius (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2016)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : CLOSED

European countries experience an increasing policy concern about migration’s impacts on social cohesion. Social cohesion is understood as ‘solidarity’ and ‘togetherness’, often measured by generalized trust. However, studies using think aloud data demonstrate that many respondents high in generalized trust think ‘most people’ refers to people they know, whereas a high proportion of those low in trust think about strangers. Thus this project starts by recognizing that generalized trust is not necessarily the same as lack of prejudiced feelings about out-groups and aims to return to the overlooked basics: the operationalization of generalized trust, which is allegedly in decline by ethnic diversity. Furthermore, this project aims to relate attitudes to implicit measures and behavior in a controlled setting, which is ignored in previous research. Failure to accurately map the relation between generalized and out-group trust may not only lead us to possibly overestimate or underestimate their incidence in different settings, but it also conceals clear public policy directions. The first two objective of this research are: to examine the measurement similarity between generalized and out-group trust among educational groups with the aid of think aloud data and invariance testing. The third objective is to experimentally assess how well these attitudes relate to less socially desirable measures, namely reaction time in associating out-groups and in-groups with (un)pleasant words and how far research participants choose to sit away from in-groups and out-groups as social distance. Results from this project will benefit governmental agencies and academics seeking to map social cohesion by providing better quality indicators. Furthermore, the EF will enable the candidate to further develop her position as a leading academic in political psychology. This project, finally, contributes to an overarching policy area of the EU in enhancing social inclusion and inclusive growth.

Mots clés : generalized trust, out group trust, implicit association, out group bias, prejudice, social distance, cognitive interviews, measurement invariance, experiments

Participants :
- University of Amsterdam (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 177598.8 €
Projet GAE (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2017)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

European populations are ageing, and this has important health, economic and social consequences. Yet in order to manage these, we need to understand the complex phenomenon of "biological age", and in particular its genetic determinants. It is now established that longevity insurance genes such as TP53 mitigate the roles of mitochondrial function, oxidative stress and telomere shortening, and that these genes are also involved in ageing, with senescence and cancer being two faces of the cell growth balance. Thus, longevity is a trade-off between cancer and ageing, but also possibly fertility and menopause. In that respect, Asian elephants are a fascinating model: similar to humans in lifespan, senescence, and selection for grandmotherhood, they are almost exempt of cancer, contrary to predictions based on their large size. Recently, multiple retrocopies of TP53 have been identified in elephants: a strong argument to consider that cancer-avoidance and a long lifespan are the product of genetic adaptations in proboscideans. The genetic architecture of human-like ageing is impossible to study in classical short-lived models, as they lack the traits that make human life-history special, like a post-reproductive lifespan. Therefore, I propose to use a unique century-long dataset on life-history and health records for thousands of Asian elephants, currently explored by Prof. Lummaa's international-level team through behavioural ecology and ecophysiology at University of Turku. Together with my secondment host Prof. Bertorelle at University of Ferrare, I will apply my skills in cutting-edge genomic methods to disentangle the hereditary and individual determinants of ageing in long-lived mammals. By bringing these different competences together on a one-of-its-kind dataset, I will exploit this unique and exciting opportunity to explore the genomics of senescence through a multi-disciplinary approach, which may yield important insights for understanding human ageing.

Mots clés : life history, oxidative stress

Participants :
- University of Turku (Finlande) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 179325.6 €
Projet SpinScreen (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2018)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Europe’s leadership in quantum technologies can only be sustained by fundamental research. A challenge in this field is to choose the physical platform for qubits, the units of a quantum computer. Semiconductor nanowires coupled to superconductors offer a potential solution as a platform for a new type of qubit, which has the unique advantage of being inherently protected from decoherence. The physical ingredients of this qubit are Majorana modes. A common device geometry used to investigate transport through these modes is a superconducting island coupled to a nanowire. However, at this stage little is known about the interactions of islands with quantum dots, which are themselves commonplace near charge depletion. Whereas the interaction of a single dot strongly coupled to a superconductor lead at fixed potential is known to lead to anti-ferromagnetic screening by quasiparticles in the superconductor, the interaction of the dot with an isolated superconductor remains to be explored. If this gap in the knowledge is filled, we could learn to distinguish between subgap states related to screening of the dot, and those involving the island/nanowire hybrid. Crucially, only the latter ones are related to Majorana modes. At QDev, I will investigate screening by an epitaxial superconducting Al island of a single quantum dot defined in an InAs nanowire. To do this, I will tune the coupling between the island and the dot with a gate voltage and obtain the quantum phase diagram. While most of Majorana research is understandably focused on how to make a qubit, I will tackle three more fundamental questions, which will serve this purpose in the long run and go substantially beyond the state of the art. 1) How does a single quasiparticle in the island screen a spin? 2) How does screening occur when the island cannot accept quasiparticles? 3) Can novel non-Fermi liquid physics emerge when adding a superconducting lead to the dot-island system?

Mots clés : electronic quantum transport, quantum dots, semiconductor nanowires, yu shiba rusinov states, superconducting islands, majorana modes, hybrid quantum devices

Participants :
- University of Copenhagen (Danemark) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 207312.0 €
Projet MOSUDO (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2014)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Europe’s pharmaceutical industry is faced with the multitude of lead compounds that are discarded during their development phase. One of the hurdles of most promising drugs is that they have difficulties reaching their site of action in the human body. This insufficient bioavailability results from the complex, poorly understood interplay between drug molecules, water and the surfaces of drug delivery materials and cell membranes. To tackle this challenge, a paradigm shift that recognizes water as headline act is proposed. The physical properties of water drastically change when approaching solid surfaces or cell membranes. Nobel Prize winner Albert Szent-Györgyi even described life itself as “water dancing on the tune of solids”. This research proposal aims to gain understanding of water and drug molecule mobility near silica surfaces. Silica materials in recent years popped up as most promising materials for drug delivery. Unravelling the complex interplay between drug, water and silica surfaces will equip pharmaceutical scientists with a generic toolbox to enhance the bioavailability of newly developed drug candidates. MOSUDO research focuses on probing the mobility of water, amino acids with varying hydrophilicity and a peptide drug in contact with silica. Diffusion-Ordered Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spectroscopy (DOSY NMR) is living spectacular developments and revolutionary sensitivity improvement. This project will take advantage of this development of DOSY NMR to investigate the complex molecule-water-surface interplay with new eyes. Fellowship applicant Dr. Randy Mellaerts can rely on a strong interdisciplinary background in surface chemistry and pharmacy. Acquiring in-depth technical expertise in DOSY NMR and its direct application in pharmaceutical industry will complement his current research profile and allow him to embark at the highest scientific level in a for society very important research area.

Mots clés : water, silica, drug delivery, dosy nmr, surface, peptide

Participants :
- Centre national de la recherche scientifique (France) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 185076.0 €
Projet FISHARC (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2014)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Europe’s pristine marine fisheries probably originated in estuarine biotopes rather than on the open shore, while many of what we now consider offshore species were also originally denizens of much shallower waters. These new data do not emerge from traditional historical data, such as landing records, but from a less conventional source: zooarchaeolo-gy. This archaeological data also suggests that estuarine fish were particularly vulnerable to fishing pressure. Through the analysis of pre-historic, historic and modern fish remains from the Iberian Peninsula, FISHARC will explore (1) the origin and evolution of fishing activities in the Northeast Atlantic, and (2) their impacts on fish biodiversity, behaviour and ecology through time and space, with a particular focus on the commercially import species of cod and hake. The project will pair the zooarchaeological expertise of Laura Llorente-Rodríguez, with the state-of-the art biomolecular facil-ities of the BioArCh at the University of York, to 1) develop new molecular methods for accurate fish species identifica-tion; and 2) apply new stable isotope approaches to examine human impacts on the biogeography, trophic level and pop-ulation structure of North Atlantic cod and hake through time. This project will explore a unique source of cultural, ecological and environmental data preserved in archaeological record to generate invaluable baseline data on pre-industrial fish population levels immediately applicable to marine conservation and management issues. KEYWORDS: fishing origin, fishing evolution, Norhteast Atlantic, ichtyoarchaeology, ecological baselines

Mots clés : fishing origin, fishing evolution, norhteast atlantic, ichtyoarchaeology, ecological baselines

Participants :
- University of York (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 183454.8 €
Projet PLEBRIGHTS (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Even before the pandemic hit, it had become clear that democratic regimes around the world are in crisis. While the majority of governments are democratic only in appearance, constitutional rights have been revealed as weak protections against oligarchic states even in OECD member countries —most recently with the brutal repression involving “non-lethal weapons” used in France against the gilet jaunes, in Chile against those protesting neoliberalism, and in the Unites States against Black Lives Matters supporters. These outbursts of dissent and state repression come to puncture the thin veil of formal equality that conceals the structural forms of domination that easily reproduce in environments with high socioeconomic inequality. The dominant liberal theory of rights, grounded on natural equality and abstract principles, has been incapable of properly addressing the limits that material conditions imposed on the equal enjoyment of basic rights. Experiments with socioeconomic rights in South Africa and collective rights in Latin America have begun to push the constitutional boundaries of the liberal conception of rights, and have also revealed the limitations imposed by the main theoretical frameworks. During the fellowship I will write a book that will provide an alternative to the predominant philosophical framework of liberal constitutionalism, in which rights tend to be interpreted as formal and negative, as well as to the communitarian conception of rights. Through a plebeian theoretical framework and an interdisciplinary analysis combining intellectual history, comparative politics, philosophy, and critical legal theory, I will show how the rights of the common people have historically originated in power relations and the juridical protections gained in the popular struggle against oligarchic domination, and offer a theory of political and socioeconomic rights emerging from this plebeian praxis of resistance.

Mots clés : rights, materialism, republicanism, liberalism, freedom of speech

Participants :
- University of Cambridge (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 224933.76 €
Projet MISTRUST (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2018)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Every day a vast amount of misinformation and Fake News are repeated and infinitely shared, reaching millions of people in a short time. The large-scale dissemination of misinformation is one of the major challenges that current societies face, with long-lasting costs to individuals and governments. European Commission’s recent efforts in seeking advice from experts regarding measures to counteract disinformation attest to the urgency of addressing this issue. The fact that people tend to believe in information they repeatedly encounter and to reject claims that contradict what they heard before makes misinformation-correction very difficult. Since most correction strategies entail both a repetition of the false claims and their contradiction, they ironically end up strengthening the validity of the misinformation they attempt to correct. It is thus of the utmost importance to examine the mechanisms that may contribute to the development of effective misinformation-correction actions. This proposal contributes to that goal, addressing a novel variable - source (un)trustworthiness - with the potential to influence the effects of repetition and contradiction on perceived information validity. It is hypothesized that providing information about the untrustworthiness of the source of previous false claims will prompt individuals to scrutinize and analyze information more deeply, counteracting the effects of repetition and contradiction (which rely on superficial information processing). This research program will both advance the knowledge in the field and inform future policies to deal with the increasing amount of misinformation that is spread to the public. The researcher conducting the project has the relevant expertise on both the specific field of research and the appropriate experimental methodologies. Additionally, the Host offers a high-quality research and training environment, and the necessary infrastructure for the successful implementation of the project.

Mots clés : misinformation, illusions of truth, trustworthiness, misinformation correction

Participants :
- Iscte – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (Portugal) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 147815.04 €
Projet NBSC (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2014)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Every form of semantically-driven human behavior is supported by semantic ‘control’, which refers to executive processes that regulate access to semantic knowledge. To understand everyday verbal and nonverbal activities (e.g., speaking, object use), as well as impairments after brain damage, it is crucial to establish how semantic control is implemented in the brain. In general terms, semantic control is known to be supported by a network of frontal-parietal-temporal brain areas. However, the exact contribution of each area to semantic control and whether each is specific to semantic control or part of a general cognitive control function, remain to be determined. Besides advancing basic science these questions are clinically important as different parts of the network can be affected by brain damage. The goal of this project is to answer these questions by carrying out two fMRI investigations and one TMS study, on the very same participants. This novel combined multimethod approach ensures that this project will provide convergent evidence on these key issues. To find specializations related to different types of semantic control, we will first run an fMRI study with a semantic association task comparing two different conditions that differ only for the type of semantic control processes required. To explore the extent to which these functional specializations are dedicated to semantic control, we will run a second fMRI study with a non-semantic association task and we will compare control effects across semantic and non-semantic tasks. To test whether the brain areas revealed by fMRI have a necessary role for different types of semantic control, we will run a TMS study during a semantic association task. Thus, additional innovative aspects of this project reside in measuring neural priming disruption effects with fMRI and in using online single-pulse TMS, to allow more precise evaluation of the contribution of each area and its time-course in semantic control.

Mots clés : semantic control, fmri

Participants :
- University of Manchester (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 183454.8 €
Projet HIZRAD (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2019)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Every massive galaxy in the Universe has at its heart a super-massive black hole (SMBH), with some extreme galaxies able to build SMBH with masses in excess of 100 million solar masses within only the first few Gyr of cosmic history. How did these individual extreme SMBH form so quickly, and what was the accretion history of the wider SMBH population in the early Universe? As a probe of black-hole accretion that is not subject to dust obscuration, sensitive new radio continuum surveys offer a unique opportunity to study the first few Gyr of SMBH formation in unprecedented detail and answer these fundamental questions. This project will combine two surveys the participant has a leading role in, the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) Surveys Project and the WEAVE-LOFAR spectroscopic survey, to build a sample of radio selected active galactic nuclei in the early Universe that reaches new and extremely important areas of parameter space and is >100x larger than existing samples. The unprecedented scale and sensitivity of these datasets will result in the first robust measurements of the accretion and mass history of SMBH in the early Universe. This project will also discover the first sample of luminous radio galaxies within the Epoch of Reionization; an important breakthrough that opens an entirely new window onto the process of cosmic reionization - one of the outstanding current cosmological challenges. The University of Edinburgh is a leading centre for the study of galaxy and black-hole formation in the early Universe, both through radio continuum and optical spectroscopy surveys. The researcher is an expert in the optical astronomy techniques required to perform the proposed robust population studies and is uniquely placed to exploit the exquisite WEAVE-LOFAR data. Together, these transformational datasets and the complementary expertise of the host and researcher will result in world-leading research that has extensive impact within the wider astronomical community.

Mots clés : epoch of reionization

Participants :
- University of Edinburgh (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 212933.76 €
Projet FERHAZ (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2017)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Everyday electronic devices suffer from power-loss issues originating from leakage currents in the stand-by (OFF) mode, which dominate even more with miniaturization of transistors. The concept of negative capacitance on ferroelectric (FE) materials, and consequently ferroelectric field-effect transistor (FEFET) provides a materials solution to achieve sharp-switching in FETs, and promises to be a breakthrough solution to reduce this OFF state leakage. The recent demonstrations of ferroelectricity in thin (<10 nm) Hafnia-based (HfO2) films, which are readily Si integrable is an encouraging news for FEFET technology. FEFETs have earlier eluded industrial applications owing to Si compatibility issues of well-known FE materials. FERHAZ tackles this new kind of ferroelectricity, starting from fundamental studies on its origin leading upto application oriented FEFET devices. In FERHAZ, HfxZr1-xO2 (HZO) films with varying Zr content (x, doping) will be grown epitaxially on various substrates (strain-states) including Silicon, under various oxygen partial pressures (point-defects). The FE hysteresis, dielectric and piezoelectric response on these films will be measured, and will be correlated with atomic structure, symmetry, microstructure and chemistry analysis obtained via high-resolution STEM and spectroscopy. The best FE films on Si will be selected to study the phase-competition, FE and piezoelectric behavior in real time under strain and electric field via in situ TEM measurements. Lessons from these fundamental multiscale studies will be employed in the fabrication and optimal design of FEFET with small leakage. FERHAZ will integrate my expertise on in situ microscopy with the extensive experience of the host-lab in FE thin-film growth and characterization. Importantly, the skills and training obtained will enable me to position myself as a leading young scientist in materials science, strengthening my career prospectives to be a future group leader.

Mots clés : in situ electron microscopy, ferroelectricity, hafnia, fefet, negative capacitance, static power leakage, epitaxy, strain, point defects, doping

Participants :
- University of Groningen (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 165598.8 €