Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-actions-marie-curie-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet MetaBot (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2017)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The combination of empirical testing with computational modeling is the most promising path in neuroscience of decision-making. Nonetheless, neuro-computational models of decision-making are still affected by two main limitations. First, computer simulations, typically used for testing neural models, represent the environment in a very simplistic way, exposing the computational models to “toy problems”. Second, computational neuroscience often neglects that bodily processes do not simply “execute” what is decided centrally, but are part of cognitive processing itself (embodied cognition). The main goal of this project is to solve these two limitations and to open a new path in cognitive and computational neuroscience of decision-making. We plan the embodiment in a humanoid robotic platform (iCub) of a novel neuro-computational model, representing the state of the art in modeling neurobiology of decision-making. This neural model, the Reinforcement Meta-Learner (RML), generates emergent (i.e., homunculus-free) cognitive control signals and supports learning to solve complex decision problems by self-regulating its internal parameters (meta-learning). In simplified and disembodied computer simulations, the RML already revealed to be exceptionally successful in explaining many different experimental data sets (both neural and behavioural) from different domains. The RML embodiment would represent one of the few cases where a neural model, born completely in the domain of cognitive neuroscience, would be embodied in a humanoid robot. The fusion of cognitive neuroscience and humanoid robotics will allow to investigate the role of embodiment in decision-making in real world problems (contribution to neuroscience), and it also would represent a unique opportunity to test the effectiveness of the RML to be a new way for developing genuinely autonomous decision-making in robots (contribution to robotics).

Mots clés : neuroscience of decision making, reinforcement learning, embodied cognition, intelligent robotics

Participants :
- National Research Council (Italie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 168277.2 €
Projet Onto-mQoL (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : SIGNED

The concept of Quality of Life (QoL) involves several dimensions, such as physical health and psychological state, which can be assessed by mobile resources and integrated to support holistic processes of reasoning and interventions. Ontologies are the main approach to organise and integrate such data in the form of knowledge. However, while temporal aspects are usually present in the health domain, modelling information evolving time/events in ontologies is a complex problem since temporal relations are ternary and cannot be directly handled by ontology languages. This lack of expressiveness restricts the power of the reasoning processes because several time aspects, which are usually embedded in the QoL domain, cannot be employed. This project aims to design a conceptual framework for representation and reasoning about temporal aspects, associated with an ontological engineering method to guide the use of this novel framework during the process of converting static ontologies to their temporal versions. This approach will be used over the development of four case studies: (1) general QoL ontology to represent the data acquired by the Quality of Life technologies lab over its longitudinal mobile assessments; (2) specialization of the QoL ontology for the aging population; (3) use of the previous ontologies as background knowledge to support the generation of explanations for inductive reasoning; and (4) use of the previous ontologies for QoL deduction-based interventions. The validation of these ontologies and their applications will consider technical (identification of inconsistencies and contradiction) and empirical (ability to provide answers for competency questions) methods. As the main expected result, this project intends to deliver a pragmatic strategy to support the creation of knowledge-based resources that can in fact improve the QoL of the general public and be adapted to cover the particularities of specific population features.

Mots clés : knowledge representation, mhealth, temporal logics, ontology, health assessment, health intervention

Participants :
- University of Geneva (Suisse) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 203149.44 €
Projet neutronSPHERE (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2019)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The concept of neutron spectroscopy dates back to neutron discovery in 1932. Despite several attempts towards an efficient neutron spectroscopy system, such measurements remain cumbersome and detailed neutron spectra are sparse both in scientific laboratories and industrial sites. To-date the most widely used method relies on the 3He(n,p)3H reaction, which - however - is more well suited for thermal neutrons and is particularly expensive, given that 3He is scarce. All existing alternatives are plagued by major disadvantages: toxic/corrosive gases, poor efficiency, limited radiation hardness, degraded energy resolution. The neutronSPHERE project will provide a unique alternative to 3He-based detectors for neutron spectroscopy by using the Spherical Proportional Counter (SPC), a high-gain large-volume gaseous detector, filled with a nitrogen-based mixture. The detection principle exploits the 14 N(n, α )B11 and 14 N(n, p)C14 processes, and exhibits all major advantages of 3He-based detectors, and goes beyond that to provide fast neutron spectroscopy at an affordable price. This breakthrough is enabled by novel developments in SPC instrumentation that the host has played a key role in demonstrating. The capabilities of the developed neutron spectroscopy system will be demonstrated in two application: Firstly, neutronSPHERE will provide the first high precision measurements of the neutron background spectrum in underground facilities. These will provide a unique insight and will immediately inform direct searches for Dark Matter. Then, neutronSPHERE will measure in situ the neutron-induced dose during proton therapy treatments, which is a crucial element in hadron therapy treatment and planning.

Mots clés : dark matter direct detection, gaseous detectors, fast neutron spectroscopy

Participants :
- University of Birmingham (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 212933.76 €
Projet By-BM (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2015)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The construction industry is critical to innovation and employment in the EU economy, providing 20 million direct jobs and about 10 % of the EU’s GDP. The EU’s Waste Framework Directive (2008/98/EC) has set an ambitious target of at least 70% of construction and demolition waste (CDW) to be reused, recycled or undergo materials recovery by 2020. Coupled with the challenges of depletion of raw materials and demand for low carbon material resources, new eco-innovative building materials (BM) are urgently required. Geopolymers are alternative low-carbon binders and can be produced through the reuse of industrial wastes. Although economically viable, market uptake and widespread application of these new types of synthetic materials is currently hampered by public health concerns related to immobilization of potentially toxic compounds and in particular radiation exposure from natural isotope content. The EU’s Council Directive (2013/59/Euratom) has laid down basic safety standards for protection against the dangers arising from exposure to ionizing radiation including BMs. The By-BM project will develop innovative, environmentally-safe geopolymer building materials – which integrate waste materials, yet comply with necessary safety standards. Inactive leaching studies will also be carried out to investigate the possibilities of By-BM geopolymers in Radioactive Waste Cementation. The project brings together a leading research group in geopolymer concrete (Host – Queen’s University Belfast) together with secondments to the Nuclear Technological Centre (Hasselt University) and the JRC Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements. The unique skills of the researcher will be required to exploit and innovate upon the research expertise of the participating institutes. The Fellow will extend his radioecology related experience whilst developing new skills in low carbon footprint geopolymers (and their replacement of traditional building materials, especially cements).

Mots clés : building material, reuse, industrial by products, geopolymers, naturally occuring radioactive materials  norm, radon exhalation, gamma radiation

Participants :
- Queen's University Belfast (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 195454.8 €
Projet BIOLACVAC (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2019)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The consumption of functional foods has increased in the last years and, with it, the offer of available products to the consumer. These products, such as berries, are consumed by the health benefits preventing chronic diseases. In turn, fresh consumption of this fruits has increase in quantity and diversity, but the number of outbreaks of infectious diseases associated with their consumption is increase together. For this reason, the use of biofertilizers must follow strict biosecurity standards as reflected in future European regulations in this area. This regulation contains a limited number of microorganisms such as Rhizobium and another bacteria present in foods to be applied as biostimulant. So the use of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) is an option to consider. In this project,, we propose the employ of LAB as biofertilizer to use on blueberry crops to improve the production and the quality of the fruits.

Mots clés : vaccinium, lactic acid bacteria, biofertilizer, funtional foods, bioactive compounds

Participants :
- University of Beira Interior (Portugal) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 159815.04 €
Projet ALIAS (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : SIGNED

The continued safe operation of critical infrastructure is key in ensuring economic prosperity. The drive towards carbon neutrality presents significant challenges to engineers as increasing operational efficiency often results in harsh, unfavourable operating conditions (e.g. offshore wind turbines). The cost of implementing more efficient processes is a reduction in materials performance resulting in prohibitively short component lifetimes. The challenge facing engineers lies in improving the structural integrity assessment (SIA) methods. Current SIA methods are predominately stress-based and thus, inherently dominated by the yield strength of the component material. Non-linear materials such as steels typically fail by strain induced plasticity where significant additional energies are adsorbed prior to fracture. Strain-based assessments contain considerable built in conservatisms that have not yet been explored. The principal aims of this fellowship application are to develop more advanced SIA methods by considering conservatisms in existing stress-based and strain-based approaches and to exploit recent advances in machine learning to identify and predict key parameters influencing transformative damage in fracture toughness testing. The fundamental understanding of material damage generated in this work will reduce knowledge gaps currently impeding SIA improvement. The benefits of this work include advances to multiple international codes and standards, the continued safe operation of aging critical infrastructure, longer more realistic estimated lifetimes for new components and, significant industrial cost savings through enhanced component design, reduced maintenance cost and reduction in early structure retirement.

Mots clés : fracture mechanics, structural integrity, plasticity, ductile and brittle fracture mechanisms, transformative damage, artificial neural network

Participants :
- University of Limerick (Irlande) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 184590.72 €
Projet NUTRIENT (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2018)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The continuous elevation of atmospheric CO2 concentration will lead to levels higher than 750 ppm at the end of the century. Such elevated atmospheric CO2 (eCO2) will impact the biology of most plants, as CO2 is a limiting factor for C3 photosynthesis. While it is predicted that eCO2 will increase biomass production in C3 plants, many studies suggest that this is actually lower than expected. In addition eCO2 impairs the mineral status of these plants, especially for nitrogen (N) and iron. This is now acknowledged as an under evaluated threat for human nutrition, as deficiencies in proteins and micronutrients are already serious health problems affecting about two billion people. The key issue addressed by NUTRIENT is to understand why eCO2 has a detrimental effect on mineral nutrition of C3 plants. This effect is not understood, but recent studies indicate that eCO2 may negatively affect physiological and/or developmental processes involved in nutrient acquisition, translocation and assimilation. This highlights a major knowledge gap on the coordination between photosynthesis and mineral nutrition in response to eCO2. NUTRIENT will tackle this issue by focussing on the effect of eCO2 on N nutrition in Arabidopsis thaliana, with the aim to identify physiological and molecular mechanisms that underlie the negative effect of eCO2 on plant proteins content. This will be achieved using an integrative systems biology approach, combining physiological and molecular analyses of N nutrition, characterisation of transport, metabolism or signalling mutants, and modelling of gene regulatory networks from transcriptomic studies. Arabidopsis is a perfect model as it shows the same negative effect of eCO2 on nutrient status as C3 crops, and offers many genetics, genomics and bioinformatics resources. NUTRIENT has great potential to contribute to Europe’s excellence and competitiveness in the world, being in line with the European and French Sustainable Development programs.

Mots clés : climate change, phenomics, plant nutrition, arabidopsis thaliana

Participants :
- Institut national de recherche pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement (France) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 196707.84 €
Projet APPS (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2016)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The controlled fabrication of nano/micro metre-scale objects is without doubt one of today’s central goals in science and technology - one essential for the development of nanotechnology and the expansion of microtechnology. Because said objects fall awkwardly between the sizes that can be manipulated by chemistry and those that can be manipulated by conventional manufacturing, the most promising strategy for their fabrication is self-assembly, that is, the autonomous organization of components into structures without human intervention. Indeed, self-assembly promises to revolutionise the way we fabricate industrial and consumer goods, building technologies and optical devices. However, it has limitations: generating complex responsive devices via this method is difficult and hence it is not well suited for producing structures for high-end applications (switchable metamaterials, nano/micro robotics...). Furthermore, the process is inherently inflexible; whilst its components spontaneously assemble, they do so to form only a single set of structures and they must be arduously taylored and selected ad hoc to achieve even this. Recently, I have proved the concept of a new self-assembly method that is not subject to these limitations and therefore has the potential to expand the application base of self assembly into previously untapped areas - such as microrobotics. I have christened this process APPS (assembly guided by particle position and shape). APPS is still in its infancy and this proposal will establish its design rules for the first time and then apply them to make jointed actuators, connected with custom DNA structures, that will have unprecedented and programmable performance on the micron scale.

Mots clés : self assembly, magnetic particles, magnetic actuation, micro robotics, low reynold number dynamics, ow reynold numbers swimmers, dna grafting, binding

Participants :
- Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (Allemagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 171460.8 €
Projet SusFRPRC (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2016)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The corrosion problem of steel reinforcement severely limits the life-cycle sustainability of conventional reinforced concrete structures. This proposal focuses on the use of corrosion-free fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) reinforcing bars in lieu of steel reinforcing bars in concrete structures. Due to the currently incomplete understanding of serviceability aspects of FRP reinforced concrete (FRP-RC) structures, the existing design guidelines are not comprehensive, and this restricts the applications of FRP-RC in real-life. The proposed project will investigate the fundamental issues of serviceability, fracture mechanics and time-dependent effects of FRP-RC to enable its practical usage. The objectives encompass experimental investigation of deformation characteristics of FRP-RC specimens, derivation of constitutive models and establishment of deformation capacity of FRP-RC members, formulation of design guidelines in serviceability and development of design aids for use by practising engineers. A number of first-time-in-the-world techniques initiated by the applicant researcher, Dr. Pui-Lam NG and the host supervisor, Prof. Gintaris KAKLAUSKAS of Vilnius Gediminas Technical University (VGTU) will be employed in the project. The expertise areas of the researcher and the host are highly complementary and there will be substantial two-way transfer of knowledge. The researcher and the host propose to undertake the project with partner organisations University of Minho led by Prof. Joaquim A.O. BARROS, and University of Cambridge led by Prof. Chris BURGOYNE, in 24 months duration. Measures to disseminate the research findings to the academic and engineering communities and communicate the results to the general public have been formulated. A detailed work plan of research activities, deployment of manpower and resources, contingency plan for risk mitigation, and availability of research infrastructure have been duly addressed to enable effective delivery of the project.

Mots clés : constitutive model, fibre reinforced polymer, serviceability, structural design, sustainable concrete structure

Participants :
- Vilnius Gediminas Technical University (Lituanie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 130779.6 €
Projet Standard EF (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2015)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The current semiconductor devices are facing physical limitations and need a new technology to replace them. Spintronics technologies have been recently identified as the most likely technology for the next generation of non-volatile random access memory. However, current spintronic approaches based on magnetic bits made of “single domain” spin structures or “domain walls” result in limited stability and an unacceptably high level of power consumption during operation due to the high currents and current densities required for manipulating the spins by spin transfer torque. To overcome these drawbacks, a new approach to achieve a more stable spin structure and a more efficient way to manipulate them is needed. This new approach is achieved in a system of a heavy metal (nominally with strong spin orbit interactions) and magnetic layer where the inversion symmetry is broken. In systems with inversion asymmetry and with strong spin orbit coupling, an additional symmetry breaking term can occur, the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI). The DMI provides a favoring chirality of the spin structures thus gives a more stable spin stucture. However, the origin and the exact extraction of the DMI is not yet established. The new approach in the efficient manipulations of spins also require a system with spin orbit interactions. Thus, when a current is applied through the heavy metal due to the spin orbit interaction an effective spin orbit torques acts on the spin of the magnetic layer. The origin of the torques are known to be the spin Hall effect and the Rashba effect. However, the exact origins of the torques ares still in debate. In this research we will be studying the origin of the DMI and spin orbit torques. Based on the knowledge through the research the correlation between the DMI and the spin orbit torques will be revealed. Furthermore, we will to tune the DMI and spin orbit torques in order to achieve high efficient switching for memory device applications.

Mots clés : spintronics, domain walls, spin orbit torques, dzyaloshinskii moriya interaction, magnetic memory devices

Participants :
- Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (Allemagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 159460.8 €