Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-actions-marie-curie-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet PRE-PSYCH (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2016)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Schizophrenia is a severe psychiatric disorder characterized by recurrent psychotic episodes that typically commence in early adulthood. There is consistent evidence for anatomical and functional brain abnormalities in schizophrenia, but their timing is unclear. Changes in behavior and cognition precede the first psychotic episode by many years, suggesting that the underlying neurobiological process predates the onset of psychosis. Clarifying the neurobiology of the pre-onset or ‘prodromal’ phase will facilitate the development of early intervention and prevention strategies for schizophrenia. I hypothesize that disruptions in the anatomical brain network, and associated disturbances in functional integration among specialized neural circuits, drive changes in behavior and cognition in the prodromal phase. In this project, I have the opportunity to test my hypothesis in a unique sample of medication-naive adolescents and young adults with early signs of impending psychosis, that are followed prospectively as they progress through the vulnerable prodromal period. This sample is collected as part of an ongoing NIMH-funded collaborative research program between a multidisciplinary Harvard/MIT research team and the Shanghai Mental Health Center. Using network science as a mathematical framework, I propose to study brain network architecture in this sample of youths with early signs of impending psychosis, to assess how disruptions in the brain’s network underlie prodromal symptoms and cognition, whether early neuroinflammation contributes to brain network deficits, and to test brain network metrics as early identifiers of emerging psychosis.

Mots clés : schizophrenia, prodromal phase, clinical high risk, neuroimaging, diffusion weighted imaging, functional imaging, brain network, connectomics, graph theory

Participants :
- Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (Etats-Unis) — Partner, organization partner, Recherche, subvention : 0.0 €
- University Medical Center Utrecht (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 242929.8 €
Projet SchizoFree (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Schizophrenia is an incurable disease hallmarked by the presence of positive, negative and cognitive symptoms. Currently, antipsychotic drugs are used to treat some of the positive symptoms, including psychosis but fail to alleviate cognitive and negative symptoms. Psychosis is associated with striatal hyperdopaminergia, hypothesized to be due to abnormal activity of midbrain dopamine neurons. Dopamine levels are already elevated in patients with schizophrenia before the onset of psychosis, suggesting that increased dopamine levels might be secondary to other alterations occurring earlier in life. Additionally, functional alterations in the prefrontal cortex contribute to the disease, and interestingly abnormally increased activity in cortical excitatory neurons leads to striatal hyperdopaminergia in mice. However, the mechanisms and developmental trajectory underlying schizophrenia is still unclear, challenging the development of novel treatment strategies. Previous work from the Marin and Rico labs has shown that reducing excitatory synapses received by Parvalbumin (PV)-expressing interneurons through deletion of tyrosine kinase receptor ErbB4 from these neurons causes a schizophrenia-like phenotype and striatal hyperdopaminergia. The first aim of this fellowship is to use this mouse model and answer the question whether striatal hyperdopaminergia is caused by interneuron dysregulation in the cortex and/or striatum. The second aim is to identify the mechanisms causing the abnormal regulation of striatal dopamine neurons and to characterize a developmental trajectory of the disease. In the third aim, I attempt to normalize interneuron function to alleviate a wider spectrum of schizophrenia symptoms, including symptoms in the cognitive and negative domain. This is important because it would allow a better treatment outcome and the identification of biomarkers for earlier detection of patients at risk.

Mots clés : interneurons, cortex, striatum, dopamine

Participants :
- University of London (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 212933.76 €
Projet Science in the City (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2014)
Action : European Researchers' Night
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Science in the City (SitC) is a nationwide festival that marries science to art to showcase Maltese researchers and their work. We place researchers on centre stage at every single activity to show the public how researchers’ work positively affects society and our daily lives. It will help change current stereotype around scientists and promote gender balance. Each activity is created around the values that science is fun, interesting, inclusive and can provide an extremely rewarding career. The activities will fill Valletta, Malta’s Capital City, with the wonders of science in a highly fascinating, innovative and interactive way. The University of Malta will lead a unique and efficient consortium of beneficiaries and partners to make ERN 2014 and 2015 two entertaining and memorable events. Through a comprehensive awareness campaign we will reach over 300,000 people to attract 20,000 (c. 5%) people in 2014 and 25,000 (c. 6%) people in 2015. As a UNESCO world heritage site, Valletta is a magnificent backdrop. Over 35 activities will run in the streets and buildings from City Gate to the heart of Valletta, Pjazza San Gorg and the Magisterial Palace of the Knights of Malta. From ancient gardens to restored squares, the public can easily visit all activities on foot. SitC will emphasise the relevance of science and research to everyday life, attuned to Maltese culture. Arts and cultural activities will be performed to communicate science. Researchers will be present in all activities. Over 80 researchers (~16% of total researchers in Malta) are involved in SitC. The schedule is highly dynamic having a general appeal. To encourage science career uptake, activities include hands on experiments, art installations, science activities, bird tracking and games aimed at very young kids. To attract youths we are running film festivals, stand-up comedy, science dances, science cafés and gaming areas. All activities appeal to the whole family to make ERN truly memorable.

Mots clés : science communication, public recognition of researchers, promotion of science careers, society, well being, european level

Participants :
- University of Malta (Malte) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 80000.0 €
- Maltese chamber of scientists (Malte) — Partner, beneficiary, Autres, subvention : 22000.0 €
- Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology (Malte) — Partner, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 8000.0 €
- Karl borg events ltd (Malte) — Partner, beneficiary, Organismes privés (hors enseignement), subvention : 35000.0 €
- Studio seven co ltd (Malte) — Partner, beneficiary, Organismes privés (hors enseignement), subvention : 15000.0 €
Projet WaSH-UPP (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2017)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Science underpins Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WaSH) policies by promoting improved understanding of ‘processes’ and ‘practices’ and providing evidence enabling effectiveness, or ‘impact’ to be evaluated. However, knowledge exchange between stakeholders rarely runs smoothly, without translational challenges. This project, ‘Water, Sanitation and Hygiene: Understanding Policy and Practice’ (WaSH-UPP) will explore the grand challenge of ‘water and sanitation for all’, recently codified in UNESCO’s Sustainable Development Goal 6 with particular focus on sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), exploring how formal and informal institutions intersect to shape policy practices. This will be achieved through comparative analysis of two globally significant exemplars (Nigeria and Malawi) (i) mapping the critical actors in the WaSH-UPP-nexus;( ii) evaluating the features of science-policy discourse in both countries; (iii) revealing knowledge co-production practices; and (iv) elaborating how institutional processes interact to shape change. Despite the centrality of WaSH to human wellbeing and societal development, widespread improvements in practices in SSA remains slow, with well-recognized barriers including cultural/religious beliefs, weakly developed water services infrastructure and socio-economic factors including gender relations. WaSH-UPP will use a range of discourses, theories, and methods to compare issues across diverse field contexts. A five month secondment (split into two phases) to the Scottish Government’s Hydro Nation Scholars Programme in the SG Water Industry Team in Edinburgh. This will enable a broadening of the WaSH stakeholder base to include international innovation services and draw in expertise from small-medium and micro-enterprises that help bridge capacity gaps leading to greater impact. A WaSH science-policy context for each country will be developed to draw out commonalities/differences as a diagnostic to answer what is working, and what is not, and why.

Mots clés : water management

Participants :
- University of Dundee (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 195454.8 €
Projet ICEotopes (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Sea-ice loss, freshening and stratification changes in the recent past have affected, and are projected to continue to affect, the timing, distribution and biomass production of Arctic primary producers. Current enhancements observed in primary production are attributed to increased light penetration associated with sea-ice thinning and loss. However, these enhancements may be a relatively short-term phenomenon that will recede unless there is additional supply of nutrients to the photic zone. In addition to external inputs through rivers, atmospheric deposition and vertical mixing, internal cycling and redistribution related to sea-ice formation, transport and melting are important mechanisms affecting nutrient distributions in the Arctic Ocean. Quantifying the individual contributions of these processes to nutrient bioavailability and cycling is imperative in light of ongoing sea-ice retreat but currently hindered by the lack of studies applying source- and process-sensitive tracers. Therefore, I propose to develop a multi-tracer approach based on a suite of innovative isotopic tracers sensitive to nutrient sources and cycling to be determined in snow, sea ice and seawater obtained from the year-round MOSAiC initiative and from multiple summer cruises to the Arctic Ocean. By combining established and new analytical techniques in trace element and isotope geochemistry and by conducting laboratory-controlled sea-ice growth experiments, this innovative and interdisciplinary approach will take advantage of cutting-edge knowledge in tracer development and behavior without compromising on the benefit of a seasonally and spatially constraint dataset. The results will provide a deep understanding of the effects on - and feedbacks within – Arctic marine ecosystems arising from sea-ice loss, reduce uncertainties associated with bioengineering-inspired carbon sequestration efforts and complement Europe’s 2020 strategy to tackle Food Security and Climate Action objectives.

Mots clés : arctic ocean, sea ice, nutrients, biogeochemical cycling, silicon, barium, zinc, cadmium, non traditional isotopes, water masses, brines, circulation, phytoplankton, diatoms

Participants :
- University of Bristol (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 289732.8 €
- Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (Etats-Unis) — Partner, organization partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
Projet QUMEC (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2015)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Securing access to raw materials is of particular concern for countries highly dependent on imports. This is the case of many EU States. Because of issues related to decreasing ore grades and scarcity of supply of primary metal forms, recycling of above-ground deposits of metal-bearing waste (or “in-use stock”) will become an increasingly important means of securing resources to provide essential building blocks to the European industry. Recycling of metal in-use stock has the further potential of avoiding consuming the large amounts of energy required in primary metal production, and of reducing related greenhouse gas emissions. Currently, however, because of metal losses during and after use, end-of-life recycling rates for many metals are often very low, so the potential for improving those recycling efficiencies is an important consideration for the achievement of a more resource efficient economy and sustainable development in Europe. This project proposes a comprehensive, exemplary research line that merges complementary drivers in the assessment of the metal-energy-climate change nexus for (i) estimating the size of current urban mines for selected, critical metals; (ii) assessing future opportunities and barriers to their recycling, and (iii) related potentials for carbon emissions reduction. The results of this project are expected to reach a wide impact in the research community and will timely inform an evidence base for future decision-making, and for enhancing the growth of European economy improving resource efficiency and recycling. While pursuing the objectives of this high-quality research proposal, the candidate will acquire new, desirable knowledge and competences that will open to him the best opportunities for achieving a leading position in research. A transfer of knowledge from the candidate to the host organisation will also contribute to implement a valuable, outstanding asset to UNIBO in the Industrial Ecology field.

Mots clés : in use stock, critical raw materials, material flow analysis, carbon emissions, metal production, life cycle assessment, urban mining, indium, europium, neodymium, copper, industrial ecology

Participants :
- University of Bologna (Italie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 180277.2 €
Projet LucFRes (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Securing food production remains a critical challenge in many world regions. Environmental change, in particular land-use change, constrains food production especially in contexts characterised by competing land demands, high population pressure and food insecurity that got compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic. Land-use change has long-term impacts through land degradation which affects food production systems (FPSs). Hence, an understanding of how changing land-uses shape the resilience of FPSs is therefore urgently needed to enhance agriculture’s adaptation. LucFRes aims to examine the processes operating at the interface of agricultural land-use and food production. Agricultural land-use change will be characterised in terms of the change intensities and the driving factors using Intensity Analysis, a spatially explicit, land change accounting framework. Relevant land-based resilience indicators for FPSs will be identified and validated with stakeholders for Southwest Nigeria. The combination of the satellite remote sensing-based land-use change intensities with stakeholders’ perspectives of likely land-use changes will provide the empirical-basis for modelling FPSs behaviour under changing policy and land management scenarios. To better optimise agricultural land-use change, the modelling will account for trade-offs and options for enhancing synergies between food production and other land uses. Thematically, LucFRes goes beyond the impacts of land-use on agricultural productivity by examining how changes in agricultural land-use build or undermine the resilience of food production systems in Southwest Nigeria, an area that have received little research attention. LucFRes’ integrative and policy-oriented approach will develop trajectories for enhancing the resilience of food production systems in Southwest Nigeria. Conceptually, it will provide a methodology for assessing the resilience of food production systems that is applicable to similar world regions.

Mots clés : land use change, food production systems, resilience, environmental change, scenario based modelling, policy dialog, remote sensing

Participants :
- University of Bern (Suisse) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 203149.44 €
Projet MicroS (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2019)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Sedimentary sulfur (S) isotope systematics (δ34S) has been widely used in paleoredox reconstruction of early Earth’s environments. Large-scale variations in the δ34S record are typically interpreted to reflect fluctuations in the global S cycle. However, the expression of S isotope fractionation is sensitive to open- vs. closed-system conditions and heterogeneous micro-scale δ34S patterns can form in S-bearing phases that precipitate over time in evolving pore-water conditions. Such intra-sample δ34S variability is undetectable in traditional bulk analyses, which has been the conventional approach in time-series δ34S compilations. Moreover, early- and late-stage interactions between organic matter and inorganic sulfide (thermochemical sulfate reduction) can impact δ34S signatures at different stages of sulfide formation leading to sulfide species with distinct δ34S compositions. Therefore, the existing stratigraphic bulk-rock pyrite δ34S compilations possibly integrate a whole spectrum of δ34S variability that may not reflect the depositional isotope composition. MicroS project will take advantage of high-resolution in situ analytical methods (SIMS, synchrotron-based X-ray spectroscopy) to investigate the micro-scale variability in organic-rich sedimentary rocks and its applicability to key intervals of Earth’s history. The project focuses on three organic-rich sedimentary basins: ~2.0 Ga Onega, ~2.1 Ga Francevillian and the modern Guaymas Basins, that share several characteristics, such as a semi-restricted rift environment, syndepositional magmatism and hydrocarbon seepage. By examining the δ34S composition of the co-existing sulfide species (e.g., pyrite, pyrrhotite, organic sulfur) and placing them into the geologic context of the individual basins, the project aims to decipher the current gap in understanding processes that govern S isotope fractionations, the transfer of δ34S to the rock record and its preservation over geologic time.

Mots clés : sulfur, earth history, microbial processes

Participants :
- University of Tartu (Estonie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 254362.56 €
- University of Washington (Etats-Unis) — Partner, organization partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
Projet INCREASE (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2015)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Semantic representation –the knowledge that we have of the world– is an essential component of our mind whose nature can be inferred from similarity measures, which we use every day to compare entities on the basis of their meaning. Many research efforts have been made to understand our knowledge, proposing that it could be based upon data deriving from our sensorimotor experience or from any sort of regularity in spoken and/or written language. Recently, models combining these two data sources obtained semantic representations that are more informative and similar to human ones. However, 1) what information is used to represent meaning and 2) the way our brains organize semantic representations still remain hot topics of debate in the field. The project aims to address these queries, by investigating, for the first time, the relation between semantic representations at three different levels: behaviour, models and brain activity. We will derive similarity measures and combined similarity models using different data sources (text corpora, semantic feature norms, ratings studies). Next, in an fMRI study, adult English speakers will perform implicit (lexical decision) and explicit (categorization) tasks. We will use (1) a state-of-the-art technique (Representational Similarity Analysis) that has heralded a new research era in the study of semantics since it allows one-to-one mappings between patterns of brain-activity measurement, behavioural and computational models, and (2) dimensionality-reduction approaches. Results will provide new knowledge on the nature of semantic structure: they will allow a better characterization of different similarity measures, adjudicating between the different similarity models and behavioural data as well as identifying differences between similarity models linked to differences in neural activity. This will reveal the different neural contributions to different aspects of meaning, opening up new research agendas.

Mots clés : concepts, semantic representation, similarity, experiential view, distributional view, combined models, fmri, neural underpinnings, representational similarity analysis, categorization

Participants :
- University of London (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 183454.8 €