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

In our daily lives, we often take our concepts for granted. Yet, in particular circumstances, it may turn out that the concepts we use are defective in relevant respects, and need to be revised (think, for instance, of the concept of marriage in several legal systems). Analytic philosophers have coined the term “conceptual engineering” to describe processes of evaluation, revision or design of conceptual representations. Often, the conceptual engineer modifies a word's intension (its “dictionary meaning”), thus changing the word's extension (its reference). Yet, as suggested by British philosopher P. F. Strawson in a seminal paper, such revision may lead to a “change of subject”: while modifying the term's semantics, one ends up talking about something else. In the current discussion, changes of subject are deemed detrimental to the unity of one’s inquiry, and are associated with the risk of communication breakdowns. The aim of CEIC is to assess the impact of the change of subject objection on conceptual engineering projects. CEIC consists of two workpackages (WPs). WP1 will examine current strategies to respond to the change of subject objection (based on the notions of “topic”, of “concept function”, and on semantic externalism respectively), and will highlight their limitations. WP2 will diagnose said limitations by pointing out a flaw in the objection itself: the notion of subject is highly indeterminate. The objection can, therefore, be downplayed. The potential problems associated with it (namely, inquiry discontinuity and miscommunication) can, however, be addressed by adopting new strategies that highlight the importance of systematic meta-linguistic reflection throughout our inquiries. Overall, CEIC will: (1) put the change of subject objection in the right perspective, and (2) explore novel methodological strategies for carrying out conceptual engineering projects both in philosophy and in other disciplines.

Mots clés : philosophy of language, concepts, semantics, conceptual revision, subject matter, inquiry, communication

Participants :
- Uppsala University (Suède) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 191852.16 €
Projet OPTOSOL (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2018)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : CLOSED

In our ever-growing digital world, finding fast and efficient ways of manipulating and transmitting information unlocks the possibility to implement more efficient business models (using big data, cloud computing, deep learning...). Amidst a number of concurrent fields (electronics, spintronics, amtronics...), photonics aims to address this technological need by exploring novel means for the generation, transmission, manipulation and detection of light. In this proposal, we want to develop a new research direction by combining knowledge from photonics and topological soft matter to find novel ways of guiding light using chiral birefringent media. The non-linear optical response of these media allows a laser beam to be self-confined and to propagate over long distances, leading to what is called spatial optical solitons. Our primary objective is to develop a complete model of optical solitons in chiral birefringent media and examine how these light solitons can be steered and controlled using topological solitons — localized and tunable perturbations of the molecular orientational field which cannot be continuously deformed into the uniform state. Our methodology will be based on the theoretical and numerical modeling of the non-linear equations for the propagation of light in chiral birefringent media, combined with collaborative experiments. This fellowship is designed to include an excellent training both on scientific skills (mainly photonics and topology, for which the expertise of the host group will be essential) and transferable skills such as leadership, project and data management, intellectual property rights, etc. The training that I will receive on photonics — a major field both in the academic and industry sector — will also provide a significant boost on my career prospects.

Mots clés : chirality, topological soft matter, photonics, modeling

Participants :
- University of Ljubljana (Slovénie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 150040.32 €
Projet CoordPEFC (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2016)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : CLOSED

In polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFCs), the commonly used catalysts are still carbon supported Pt-based nanoparticles (Pt/C), which undesirably increases the overall cost of the system. To address this challenge, advanced non-precious group metal (NPGM) catalysts have been endeavoured due to their potential low cost and high CO tolerance. Although rapid progress has been achieved in recent years, the poor activity and stability of NPGM catalysts can still not compete with the conventional Pt/C catalysts. In CoordPEFC, inspired by the excellent catalytic activities of nitrogen-containing transitional metal complexes (MCs) and the unique porosity and stability of porous coordination polymers (PCPs), we’ll develop highly active and stable MC-PCP couplers, and hybrid with highly electro conductive carbon allotropes to achieve low-cost, active site enriched and durable PEFC electrocatalysts, through a further understanding of enhanced mechanisms between MCs, nitrogen containing groups, PCP and carbon allotropes. CoordPEFC will involve careful screening of N-based ligands coordinated with Fe/Co MCs and clubbing with suitable metal (e.g. Zr/Cr/Al) containing PCPs. The as-prepared MC-PCPs/C electrocatalysts will be evaluated by ex-situ rotating disk electrode (RDE) measurement and in-situ single cell testing. Long-term durability diagnosis will be performed under real life-context at different European and international automotive driving cycles with industrial partner Amalyst Ltd and compared with the commercial Pt/C catalysts. It's expected a further understanding of the coordinated N active sites and transitional metals will be achieved to predict the catalytic activities of new NPGM catalyst system for PEFC applications.

Mots clés : polymer electrolyte fuel cells, electrocatalyst, non precious catalyst, porous coordination polymer, metal complex, carbon allotropes

Participants :
- University of Birmingham (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 183454.8 €
Projet DeciTrustNET (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2016)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : CLOSED

In real world decision-making, such as public security, social choice or recommender systems, we have a large body of data from various networked heterogeneous information sources or individuals that often conflict with each other and provide inconsistent knowledge. It is a challenging task to yield an optimal consensus decision, given the range of individual decisions obtained in terms of these knowledge sources. This research proposal aims to create a novel mathematical and computational framework for trust based social choice in networks and with uncertain knowledge by merging multiple individuals’ preferences in an adaptive manner to reduce the disagreements among them, and automatically seek a decision or provide a recommendation with a maximal consensus. To achieve our goal, we propose to bring together, for the first time, four previously disparate strands of research: social network analysis, fuzzy preference modelling, multiple attribute group decision-making and game theoretic modelling of malicious users. As a showcase the proposed framework will be incorporated to an e-health recommender platform to increase healthy lifestyle in cancer survivors. Both the fellow and the host researcher have extensive research experience in decision support system under uncertainty, e-health platforms and software and mobile development. With the foundational theory already in place, and given the growing interest in decision support systems and social networks, the time is right for pursuing this research. Being executable, this model will pave the way for an entirely new form of automated decision-support under uncertainty and incomplete information in dynamic environments and, at the same time will greatly expand the fellow knowledge and skill set, and help her to develop into a leading independent researcher. The proposed application has great outreach/commercialisation potential and contributes towards the H2020 Health, Demographic Change and Wellbeing challenge.

Mots clés : trust network, social choice, consensus, inconsistent knowledge, conflict, dynamic environment, uncertainty, trust propagation, influence, e health recommender system, care delivery

Participants :
- De Montfort University (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 183454.8 €
Projet COST (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2015)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Economic Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

In recent decades, Regional Trade Agreements (RTA) have become increasingly prevalent. A common way of assessing costs and benefits of RTAs is by using Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) approach. CGE based studies then use this framework to forecast for example, the trade growth, job creation, and welfare gains from forming RTAs. Unfortunately, their predictions poorly match the actual medium to long run outcomes of existing RTAs. With RTAs such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnerships (TTIP) currently under negotiation, CGE analysis plays a central role in the negotiation process. Therefore the accuracy of CGE models is of paramount importance. One way in which modern CGE models fall short is in their overly simplistic approach to trade costs. This includes both their measurement and their place in the underlying model. In particular, CGE studies to date fail to account for within-country trade costs, i.e. trade costs which are non-discriminatory as they apply to both domestic and foreign firms. Instead, they focus solely on discriminatory trade costs which apply only to foreigners. This has critical implications both in how to measure trade costs (as many compare within-country to cross-border trade and therefore combine discriminatory and non-discriminatory trade costs) and in how to include them in the analysis. As the goal of RTAs is to reduce trade barriers, this oversight can result in incorrect expectations on an RTA's impact and therefore wrong policy recommendations. The aim of COST project is to develop trade cost measures and specifications for modelling impacts of trade costs for CGE models that overcome these methodological and modelling limitations and consequently improve accuracy of future CGE studies in predicting the costs and benefits of RTAs.

Mots clés : trade costs, gravity

Participants :
- National University of Ireland (Irlande) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 187866.0 €
Projet NAROBAND (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2016)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : CLOSED

In recent years a widespread investigation of semiconductor materials and its use in optoelectronic devices has taken place. Despite the vast variety of semiconductor materials, solution processable semiconductor nanocrystals (NC’s) take lead thanks to their excellent optoelectronic properties (tunable band-gap, high PLQY and optical stability) while they become more and more appealing for their low production cost. Although, a variety of semiconductor NC’s have been synthesized for application in the visible spectral region, only few examples exist with tunability in mid and near-IR, and most notable high toxicity mercury and lead based NCs. On the other hand, nowadays we experience a burst of emerging near and mid-IR technologies (e.g. solar cells, detectors, night cameras) which are moving towards the use of environmentally friendly IR emitting materials for large scale production. Therefore, NAROBAND aims to exploit the synthesis and the functionalization of low-toxic narrow-band gap Ag2SxSey NC’s via both chemical and physical routes towards the fabrication of environmental friendly, low cost solar cell devices. The project focus on achieving full control of the bandgap (1.2eV–0.4eV) via quantum confinement and stoichiometry allowing to decouple nanocrystals size and surface effects from bandgap, leading to a better control of the optoelectronic properties. Moreover, throughout careful surface characterization and functionalization NAROBAND aims to suppression of the trap state density, enhancing the carrier mobility and manipulating the energy levels of the valence and conduction band of the NC’s. These material advancements will pave the way towards, firstly, the fabrication of high efficient IR solar cell devices and later on the realization of tandem solar cell by using the conventional Si technology to harvest the high energy electromagnetic radiation of the sun, while the aforementioned solar cell device will collect the, so far wasted, IR radiation.

Mots clés : colloidal quantum dots, solar cells, solution processed opto electronics, thin films

Participants :
- Institute of Photonic Sciences (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 158121.6 €
Projet RAPID-KDM (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2014)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : CLOSED

In recent years it has become evident that the functional human proteome is vastly expanded by post-translational modifications (PTMs) that modify protein function and gene expression in a time- and context-dependent manner. Misregulation of these modifications leads to developmental disorders and often contributes to disease biogenesis. However, with the possible exception of protein phosphorylation, the full roles and regulation of these modifications remain poorly understood. Currently, in particular, arginine methylation is proposed to be largely stable and irreversible. Building on my exciting preliminary data that demonstrate that Jumonji C histone demethylases (JmjC KDMs) can catalyse removal of arginine methylation, this proposal aims to identify biologically relevant methylarginine substrates of the JmjC KDM. Cutting-edge mRNA display-based peptide screening technology will be adapted for use as a substrate identification assay in collaboration with Prof Hiroaki Suga at the University of Tokyo. Consensus sequences identified using this novel methodology will be used to identify biologically relevant peptide sequences by bioinformatic searches. On the return to the UK, results with isolated proteins will be correlated with in-cell studies and the functional consequences of these reactions assessed. Given the high level of interest in the post-translational modification field, the results of this study will be of interest to a very wide-range of scientists including other academic researchers in the field of epigenetics and beyond, and major biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies studying JmjC KDMs as drug targets. The fellowship will provide training in state-of-the-art techniques. The collaboration between the University of Oxford and the University of Tokyo will enhance the research capabilities of the European Union, promote cross-fertilisation of knowledge and strengthen research ties with Japan.

Mots clés : enzymology, post translational modifications, histone demethylases

Participants :
- The University of Tokyo (Japon) — Partner, organization partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
- University of Oxford (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 270271.8 €
Projet SPINONICS (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2019)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : SIGNED

In recent years several breakthrough have been achieved in wavefront shaping owing to the technological advances in metasurface fabrication. This has led to the whole new field of planar optics wherein the phase and polarization of the beam can be modified due to the Geometric Phase associated with the inhomogeneous distribution of the individual nanostructures. Several novel devices have been proposed, but all these devices work mainly in the plane-wave approximation, i.e., propagation length is much shorter than the Rayleigh length. However many of the integrated photonic devices, including the fundamental component, a waveguide works at lengths much larger than the Rayleigh length. This Project aims to study novel integrated photonic devices based on spin-orbit interactions in anisotropic materials with an inhomogeneous distribution of optic axis resulting in Pancharatnam-Berry Phase (PBP). Tailoring the PBP it is possible to guide light in the absence of any gradient in refractive index, the latter conventionally employed in standard photonic waveguides. In this Project novel integrated photonic components and devices with new functionalities based on PBP will be developed, e.g, directional couplers, polarization-dependent routers, PBP based resonators, fully exploiting the vectorial nature of light by coupling its spin and angular momenta. The Project will mainly focus on liquid crystals where the optic axis can be easily tailored to obtain the desired transverse patterns. However, other materials like structured photopolymer, structured vertical cavity surface emitting laser will also be considered. In the nonlinear regime light itself writes an inhomogeneous distribution of the optic axis resulting in dynamic integrated devices which will be then polymerized to freeze them permanently. Summarizing, the Project will disclose new scenarios for linear and nonlinear integrated optics and enable light guiding and signal routing in structured anisotropic media.

Mots clés : berry phase, optical waveguiding, anisotropic material, solitons, maxwell s equations, liquid crystals, fdtd, directional coupler, photopolymerization, all optical devices, structured beams

Participants :
- Friedrich Schiller University Jena (Allemagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 262209.6 €
Projet TIC-AUV (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2015)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global Fellowships
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : CLOSED

In recent years, long-term autonomy and persistent autonomy have ecome key areas of interest for marine robotics researchers. Ocean observatories require autonomous robot deployments over months or years. Deep-water oilfield inspection and intervention with autonomous vehicles is now a commercial reality, but fielded robots rely heavily on accurate a priori models of the subsea assets. Robustness to errors in autonomous contact tasks requires detection of execution errors. Today, our current generations of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) are generally limited to preplanned missions, or to limited forms of autonomy involving script switching and re-parametrisation in response to preprogrammed events. The work envisaged in this project wants to address the need of greater autonomy and capabilities, improving the cognitive and intelligent layer of marine robotics. Research activities will focus on three main interconnected areas: • semantic world representation and reasoning, in order to represent the operating environment, taking into account uncertainty at different layers (sensor data, partial view, system evolution); • intelligent active localisation techniques, in order to define a specific set of actions aiming at robot localisation in the environment; • fault management, in order to detect, classify and react to possible in-mission faults and various problems. Combining the research results in those areas and integrating them into real marine robots will result in a great increase of autonomy and intelligent cognitive capabilities, essential skills for persistent autonomy for robotics and autonomous systems.

Mots clés : marine robotics, diagnostics, autonomous systems

Participants :
- Technical University of Munich (Allemagne) — Partner, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
- Constructor University (Allemagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 159795.6 €
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Etats-Unis) — Partner, organization partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
Projet InteroceptionAction (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : SIGNED

In recent years, neuroscientific research has linked dance aesthetics appreciation to an interplay between the visual, sensorimotor, and reward systems. A specific focus has been on an observer’s familiarity with an action and its kinematic features. At the same time, there has been growing interest in investigating the relationship between individuals’ interoceptive capabilities, emotion perception, and cognitive processes, revealing strong connections between internal body signals and brain responses. Surprisingly, the potential link between interoception and movement appreciation has not been addressed yet, despite previous evidence on kinematics-related emotion recognition and given the theoretical and practical importance of establishing such a link. Specifically, if autonomic functions impact aesthetic experience, then a substantial advancement of theoretical knowledge and cognitive models of (performing) art appreciation will be possible. Knowledge translation to clinical and entertainment frameworks will also facilitate rehabilitation and audience engagement, with pragmatic and financial benefits. The project will investigate the role of interoception in movements aesthetics, in terms of time courses and neural correlates, by modulating both stimuli’ objective features (synchrony between movement speed and observers’ heart rate) and participants’ subjective experience. Neurofunctional methods will be combined with interactive training procedures to obtain precise temporal and spatial measures of brain engagement. As a whole, the action aims to bridge neuroscience and art frameworks providing a strong emphasis on individual differences and embracing open science principles. The action will provide an ideal platform for knowledge transfer between the fellow and both host institutions, and will facilitate the fellow to acquire practical skills, theoretical experience, and develop key collaborations to help him become a world-leading independent researcher.

Mots clés : neuroaesthetics, interoception, cognitive processes, complex movement, action representations, interactive training, functional neuroimaging

Participants :
- Macquarie University (Australie) — Partner, organization partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
- Sapienza University of Rome (Italie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 257209.92 €