Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-actions-marie-curie-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet MICROCHANGE (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2014)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Marine ecosystems are centrally important to the biology of the planet but they are at risk. The number of disease outbreaks in marine organisms is increasing, most likely caused by climate change and eutrophication. It is also established that these anthropogenic effects alter the interactions between hosts and their microbiome, specifically leading to a breakdown of host-symbiont relationships and to shifts in the diversity of host-associated microbes. It is not clear however, how this is causally connected to the increased emergence of pathogens under environmental stress. This research project will establish this link by directly testing whether pathogens evolve from resident bacteria within the host-associated microbial community or whether shifts in the original microbial community facilitate the invasion by pathogens. This will be studied in a model system consisting of the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis as host, and its associated microbes, with a focus on vibrios. After the host-specific Vibrio population structure in the wild has been determined, WP1, experiments will be conducted in the laboratory testing the stability of the host-microbiome relationship under a range of environmental stressors. The role of the microbiome in protecting against the invasion of pathogens will directly be tested, WP2. In WP3, pathogen evolution will be followed in real time. Effects of the microbiome on interactions with (non-)pathogens will be separated from host effects. Particular attention will be given to the changes in the genome of vibrios, which can be connected to an increase in virulence, and to changes in gene-expression of both, hosts and the microbiome. This multidisciplinary approach, combining the strength of microbial ecology, experimental evolution, and genomic studies, will significantly contribute to our understanding of host-microbe interactions, particularly focusing on the selective forces and ecological conditions that promote pathogen emergence.

Mots clés : microbial ecology, host microbe interactions, microbiome, population genetics, vibrios, environmental change, marine ecosystems, pathogen evolution, experimental ecology

Participants :
- Kiel University (Allemagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 159460.8 €
Projet V-HDR-V (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Markets for Immersive Visual Technologies (IVT) such as Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality have been growing fast in recent years. Most of the current applications are based on computer-generated content, e.g. computer games. However, there has been a substantial interest in adding real-world live content to IVT. Volumetric imaging technologies produce 3D volume renderings from 2D images and allow to synthesize arbitrary viewing positions which is a required component for the immersive visualization of real-world scenes. Current volumetric imaging technologies are limited in terms of spatial and temporal resolution as well as dynamic range of reproducible colours. This is due to deficient sensors and lack of powerful algorithms and computing platforms which hinder the targeted level of immersion. The aim of V-HDR-V project is to overcome these limitations by making two key innovations: First, the project proposes new volumetric HDR video capture. Second, computational models of the Human Visual System (HVS) will be used to assess and guide the entire pipeline from active multi-modal sensor combination and placement over processing in terms of light field to reproduction on emerging devices such as Light Field and Head Mounted Displays. The efficiency of the entire system will be achieved by means of new parallel visual computing algorithms and its effectiveness will be validated in extensive user studies. By setting ambitious research goals, V-HDR-V project leverages the technical skills of the ER, provides him with new skills, enhances his competencies and contributes to his career development. The project has the potential to deliver valuable solutions to the Europe’s high-tech industries in the emerging field of IVT.

Mots clés : perceptually driven modelling, high fidelity representation, volumetric imaging, immersive visual technologies

Participants :
- Center for Advanced Studies Research and Development in Sardinia (Italie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 183473.28 €
Projet BiT-XLMS (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2017)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Mass spectrometry-based chemical cross-linking (XL-MS) is an emerging field to study protein structures, conformations and interactions. Despite its great potential, the data analysis part hinders its widespread applications for a variety of reasons. First, an arduous manual validation is still used in many laboratories. Second, most of the available bioinformatics tools are limited to conventional cross-linkers and not the new type of cross-linkers: MS-cleavable cross-linkers which are key to study protein interactions. Besides, almost every tool has been developed for identification but not quantification, which provides valuable information for changes in protein conformations. Above all, these tools are not user-friendly and requires an assistance of an expert bioinformatician for analysis. I therefore plan to develop fully-automated, comprehensive, user-friendly and free bioinformatics tools for XL-MS studies. This will be a part of one of the most commonly used proteomics software, MaxQuant, developed in the Cox group. MaxQuant software has already well-established preprocessing steps and a solid background. These will facilitate developing specialized tools in XL-MS effectively. I will build these bioinformatics tools which will be introduced as a module for MaxQuant software. My fellowship will cover the following three tasks: i) the identification of the protein samples by conventional cross-linkers, ii) a complete identification workflow for the analysis with MS-cleavable cross-linker and iii) performing relative quantification of over many samples. The extended version of MaxQuant will allow scientists from mass spectrometry or structural biology laboratories to analyze their XL-MS data efficiently without any assistance of bioinformatics expert. Moreover, the fully-automated and user-friendly feature of the tool will make cross-linking as one of the routine tools in structural biology.

Mots clés : chemical cross linking

Participants :
- Max Planck Society (Allemagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 171460.8 €
Projet MAWAMOSCA (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2016)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Mass-waste events not only cause geomorphological changes on our planet but they are often natural hazards, causing significant economic impact or seriously endangering human lives. Sufficiently understanding and predicting them is an important task both for the scientific community as well as to the decision-making bodies and community leaders all around the world. The importance of the topic is also emphasized in the EU Horizon 2020 third pillar "Societal Challenges". The aim of the current project is to design and develop a discrete element method (DiEM) based software package (called MWDiEM), that is able to model a number of dry (or with negligible fluid content) mass-waste events on the particle level. The code will handle cohesionless polyhedral and spherical particles and will be equipped with a number of features (e.g. GIS implementation, basal entrainment, GPU acceleration) that will allow for it to be used for real-life event simulations as well. By connecting MWDiEM to the already existing large scale two-phase continuum landslide model, r.avaflow, comparing the DiEM results to experiments and field observations and by using the DiEM code to understand the effect of shape and time-dependent size segregation on mass-flow, we hope to get a deeper understanding on mass-waste events, yielding better predictions in the future and bringing geoscientists and granular scientists together on the way.

Mots clés : mass wasting, geomorphic processes, granular matter, discrete element method, two phase continuum flow model, landslides, rockfall, segregation, runout distance, modelling across scales

Participants :
- University of Vienna (Autriche) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 178156.8 €
Projet SMART (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Massive stars are the rock stars of the Universe - blazing short, intense lives, but with death resonating for generations to come! Although massive stars have a profound impact on scales from galaxies down to nearby protoplanetary discs, how they form remains poorly understood. The Star formation history of MAssive pRoTostars (SMART) project has a clear motivation: to understand the origin of massive stars and their associated star clusters that are fundamental building blocks of all the galaxies in the Universe. I propose a research plan to unveil the birth of massive protostars through the study of accretion and ejection processes. For this, I will take an observational approach using the most powerful telescopes available on Earth and in space. I will focus in the near-infrared (NIR) regime on a sample of massive protostars with both imaging and spectroscopic techniques. NIR observations are key for probing the warm regions of the inner disc and shocked and irradiated material in outflowing jets. They can also reveal the presence of nearby lower-mass stars that may be forming as part of a cluster and influencing the massive protostar. My target sample covers a wide range of evolutionary stages and environmental conditions and already has significant ancillary multi-wavelength data available in the far-infrared and radio regimes. Several recent pilot studies have demonstrated the power of NIR observations to measure key properties of these protostars yielding new insights into these systems. Now these studies need to be greatly expanded to systematically probe the evolutionary sequence and effects of environment, ultimately leading to new tests of formation theories.

Mots clés : high mass star formation, protostellar jets and outflows

Participants :
- Chalmers University of Technology (Suède) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 203852.16 €
Projet MaCoTech (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2017)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Material counting technologies (MaCoTech) play a critical role in developing human numerical concepts like numbers, numerical relations, and arithmetical operations. Yet today, our understanding of how these concepts emerge is still very restricted, as the influential effects of prehistoric MaCoTech and Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) mathematics are difficult to assess and have been mostly neglected in modern-day research. The comparison of ANE MaCoTech to its extant counterparts of Oceania will allow investigating the impact of multiple MaCoTech on numerical elaboration, and to gain a deeper understanding of the evolution of numerical concepts in socio-historical contexts. This will include the first-ever generation of a dataset of ANE and Oceanian MaCoTech and the development of innovative strategies for cross-cultural data analysis. The project will apply state-of-the-art paradigms on the nature of human cognition to improve our understanding of how MaCoTech structure numerical concepts, which will generate novel insights into numerical origins and the role of materiality in human cognition. It will also engender new understandings of psychological–behavioral–material interactions with potential utility in cognitive-psychological research. As a cognitive archaeologist with a strong background in the materiality of numbers, I want to be among the first to work at a novel interdisciplinary crossway connecting the fields of archaeology, psychology, anthropology, linguistics, and Assyriology. With a renowned researcher in numerical cognition as my supervisor and my own expertise in ANE number systems, ANE archaeology, and philosophy of mind, this will bring me in the optimal position to foster an international high-level career in numerical cognition research at the interface of multiple disciplines. This will be substantiated by the mutual transfer of knowledge as well as national and international long-term research synergies.


Participants :
- University of Bergen (Norvège) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 208400.4 €
Projet NANOCO2RE (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2019)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Materials that efficiently and selectively catalyse the reduction of CO2(CO2RR) into chemical feedstocks would open the path to a sustainable zero-emission energy conversion cycle in the making of fuels and base chemicals. Colloidal techniques demonstrated as impactful in the synthesis of metallic nanocrystals (NCs) presenting optimal selectivity towards energy dense products, ideal for energy storage. The challenges in rationalizing NCs synthesis pathway, stability in-operando, and the CO2RR mechanism they catalyse thus present a great reward. To promote the synthesis of efficient and stable colloidal NCs for CO2RR, NanoCO2RE will encompass the study of all NCs life-stages by means of systematic in-silico investigations probing: 1) NCs application as catalysts, by screening the selectivity and activity of a large number of non equivalent adsorption sites that catalyse CO2RR, to identify the ideal ones to be engineered in a high-performance NC. 2) NCs eventual degradation in-operando, by sampling structural rearrangement in NCs presenting different size, shape, composition under reaction conditions, to single out suitable designs preventing detrimental NC restructuring. 3) NCs growth pathways, to establish NCs programmable synthesis route as a function of tunable parameters (precursors, temperature, reagents). NanoCO2RE will exploit the combination of electronic structure, enhanced sampling, and big-data techniques to encode the necessary realistic complexity and predictive accuracy, and in turn to establish rational design criteria in the synthesis of stable and selective nanocatalysts for CO2RR. Beyond the use of state-of-the-art numerical tool, a strong interdisciplinary approach is at the grounds of the project: in-silico investigations will be synergically paralleled by akin experimental studies in the host laboratory. Theory and experiments coming together is indeed key in achieving advances in the rational design of nanocatalysts.


Participants :
- Board of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (Suisse) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 191149.44 €
Projet GRISOTO (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2018)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Materials that exhibit two-dimensional transport are in the spotlight in the search for scalable systems and novel functionalities. By combining graphene, which possesses very large electronic mobility, with materials with large spin-orbit coupling, one expects to benefit from both of these properties for future practical applications in spintronics. In fact, the use of large spin-orbit coupling for conversion from charge to spin current, as well as the manipulation of the magnetization of ferromagnetic layers using spin-orbit torques (SOT), are the most promising mechanisms for the next generation of magnetic memories. Proximity spin-orbit coupling in graphene has been recently demonstrated by the host group. However, it is still poorly understood, it requires optimization and its envisioned applications are still to be explored. In the present project, we propose to investigate the proximity effect between graphene and materials exhibiting 2D transport and large spin-orbit coupling (2D-SOM) such as topological insulators (TIs) and transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), with a particular focus on the generation of large SOT. Our research program involves fabrication of 2D-SOM/graphene/ferromagnet heterostructures, including the growth of TIs using state-of-the art molecular beam epitaxy, device design, nanofabrication and characterization. The magnetization dynamics and the charge-to-spin conversion efficiency will be studied in these heterostructures using spin-torque ferromagnetic resonance. We will seek heterostructures that display large SOT. Their optimization will allow us to demonstrate full electrical magnetization reversal of a magnetic element via SOT. If successful, the outcomes of this work will advance the understanding of the proximity effect of graphene with 2D-SOM, as well as its influence on SOT, and will contribute to the unlocking of next-generation devices such as memories based on the exploitation of spin-orbit coupling.

Mots clés : spintronics, graphene, proximity effect, topological insulator, transition metal dichalcogenide, spin orbit torque, ferromagnetic resonance, heterostructures

Participants :
- Institut Català de Nanociència i Nanotecnologia (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 160932.48 €
Projet SFSysCellBio (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2014)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Mathematics
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Mathematical modelling has emerged as an important tool to handle the structural complexity of cellular processes and to gain better understanding of their functioning and dynamics. We propose to develop methods for the mathematical analysis of ODE models arising in cell biology. We focus on models of great biomedical importance, i.e. cell division cycle, NF-kB signalling pathway, and the p53 system. Pertinent mathematical questions of biological interest are: existence and stability of equilibria, periodic oscillations, switching phenomena, and bifurcations. Often the analysis of such models relies heavily on computational approaches but qualitative analysis is also very important. Detailed models of individual pathways or the cell division cycle are too large for theoretical analysis. However, there is evidence from simulations that often only a small or moderate number of components of a large systems play essential roles, while other parts have almost negligible roles. This allows the systematic use of perturbation methods. In particular slow-fast dynamical systems, i.e. systems with solutions varying on very different timescales are abundant in biology in general and in cellular biology in particular. The approach in this project relies strongly on novel dynamical systems methods for systems with multiple time scale dynamics, known as geometric singular perturbation theory (GSPT). Interestingly, the models under investigation do not have the standard form covered by the existing theory. Due to these difficulties GSPT has not been applied systematically in this area. An extended version of GSPT - using hierarchies of local approximations - will be developed for the specific models. The project will lead to better understanding of cell-cyle and signaling pathway models. These issues and the methods to resolve them are of great importance also for other models in cellular biology and also for slow-fast dynamical systems in general.

Mots clés : geometric singular perturbation theory, model reduction, oscillations, cell cycle, signaling pathway

Participants :
- TU Wien (Autriche) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 178156.8 €
Projet DRAMATIC (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2015)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global Fellowships
Panel : Mathematics
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Mathematical modelling has played a central role in understanding the fundamental characteristics and behaviour of ecological systems for over a century. In microbial systems, modelling has attempted to reveal the dynamics and interactions of simple co-cultures of organisms in chemostats through to more complex systems with highly diverse functionality. In real-world processes, such as engineered biological systems, EBS, (activated sludge, anaerobic digestion), the former models are incomplete for characterisation of the functional microbial diversity, whereas the latter models are intractable to mathematical analysis, rendering them as inadequate. The Fellowship will investigate the suitability of current mechanistic approaches to modelling for EBS using chemostat theory, but also exploring the analysis of higher dimensional models. The fellow will undertake their outgoing phase at McMaster University to develop their skills in dynamical system theory, applied to real-world systems and observed microbial ecological behaviour in various forms. This will include the use of both analytical and numerical methods to understand system stability and the detection of emergent properties. Recent advances in the understanding of the limits of classical Monod-type growth functions has given rise to new approaches including stochastic and diffusion-based models. However, mathematical investigation of these alternative concepts is not yet fully realised. The fellow will bridge the gap between microbial ecological theory, modelling and mathematical theory to understand the practical possibilities and predictive capabilities that can be exposed when rigorous analysis is achieved. As part of the return phase, he will spend a period at INRA, France, to investigate the validation and application of the models to real systems. This will be continued at Newcastle University, where dissemination of the outputs, including a dedicated software tool will be also be carried out.

Mots clés : engineered biology, emergent behaviour, software development, microbial ecology

Participants :
- McMaster University (Canada) — Partner, organization partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
- Newcastle University (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 255349.8 €