Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-actions-marie-curie-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet LA2DCOFS (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : SIGNED

LA2DCOFS will offer an extremely talented and promising young researcher with a PhD in chemistry and an extraordinary track record a world-class training throuDiscovery and development of two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors marked a milestone in modern condensed matter physics and material science. These structures exhibit unique set of properties and excel in almost every aspect of the device performance over their three-dimensional counterparts. Among these materials, recently developed semiconducting 2D covalent-organic frameworks (2D COFs) received a significant attention owning to their exceptional environmental stability, tunability, processability and modular synthesis. However, to date, these structures remain passive, which limits their potential applications. To address this challenge, this proposal describes our plans to develop light-responsive 2D COF-based semiconductors. More specifically, we will integrate light-responsive molecules – dithienyl ethenes (DTEs) – in the backbone of the crystalline imine-linked framework which will allow us to gain a remote control over their performance in electronic devices with light stimulus. We will fabricate a library of networks, consisting of various likers and DTEs and validate their performance and light-responsive function in field-effect transistor devices. Furthermore, the fabricated structures will be modified by post-synthetic reactions on the network linkages to further improve their charge transport properties and thus performance in proof of a concept device. Finally, we will integrate several DTEs with distinct electronic properties into one framework, thus creating a multivariate semiconductive 2D COFs, which will allow us to gain a simultaneous photocontrol over several parameters of the electronic devices. Overall our efforts, if successful, will result in fabrication of unprecedented semiconducting materials and will pave the way for the development of future technologies based on these materials.

Mots clés : 2d cofs, molecular photoswitches, 2d semiconductors, responsive materials

Participants :
- Université de Strasbourg (France) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 184707.84 €
Projet LABOREP (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2016)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Labor market segmentation is a defining feature of advanced industrial democracies. Workers experience different levels of labor risks and protections, with those in secure employment enjoying statutory entitlements and social benefits while the low-paid, insecurely employed, underemployed and long-term unemployed do not. During the recent economic recession, the process of labor market segmentation has hastened, reaching unprecedented levels of differentiated labor risks. Apart from the consequences of segmentation on social and economic inclusiveness and on long-term economic growth potential, segmentation has important but neglected implications for political inclusion and representation. LABOREP aims to fill this gap by examining how labor market inequalities shape political mobilization. The Action traces how workers across labor divides participate in politics and how the recent economic recession and its aftermath have affected political participation across labor segments. To do so, LABOREP exploits variation in the impact of the economic recession across over 70 Barcelona neighborhoods and over the course of the economic recession in Spain (using three original datasets collected by the host), a country that represents an ideal “laboratory” for the study of segmentation. Apart from testing a set of original theses that further our understanding of theories of participation in politics, LABOREP develops a novel methodological approach to account for labor risk differentials within the same categories of work across countries and over time. Such differentials have hindered effective cross-national research on segmentation. The approach makes a contribution to the study of labor segmentation across the disciplines of economics, sociology and political science. The theory and method gaps along with the increasing economic relevance of segmentation suggest that LABOREP has identified a topic ripe for empirical investigation and of substantial policy relevance.

Mots clés : labor market segmentation, precarious labor, political participation, political behavior

Participants :
- Autonomous University of Barcelona (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 170121.6 €
Projet MorE3D (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2019)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Landscape reshaping processes have an immense effect on humans, being a fundamental component of their habitat. The morphological signatures they leave on the terrain enable us to trace them, understand their nature, develop strategies to avert hazards and provide a more sustainable future. As such entities are better traced in their natural 3-D shape, the last decade has seen an expedite growth in the use of high-resolution laser scanning (LiDAR) technologies to document, monitor, and analyse them. Nonetheless, the unorganised nature, span and massive data volume, turn the interaction with the acquired data cumbersome and difficult. Hence, common practices are rooted in manual feature delineation or in use of off-the-shelf raster-based tools, which were developed for different applications and scales. The outcome may be subjective and prone to misidentifications or distortions. As there is an evident gap between the richness of the data and geoscientists practices, I propose in MorE3D to develop a new processing framework that strengthens that link. This will enable to highlight features, provide quantitative morphometric information, and facilitate analysis of trends and patterns which are essential to asses natural processes. Based on the understanding of the geometric signature recorded within the data, I propose to cast this as an energy-based approach that uses global optimisation to detect entities. Furthermore, as many applications combine active and passive sensors (lasers and cameras, for example) or use drone-based imaging to supplement the data during acquisition, I will to further extend the proposed scheme and develop a unified multichannel optimisation framework, where all acquired information is integrated and utilised. Such models will open new avenues to analyse features, detect patterns, trace changes, and essentially enable accurate measurements of the processes affecting landforms, while paving the way to the relevant research communities.

Mots clés : laser scanning, geoinformation, geoscience, geomorphology, algorithm, detection

Participants :
- TU Wien (Autriche) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 174167.04 €
Projet SymBa (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2019)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Language and the symbolic use of labels underpin human cognition. As these features imply back and forths between label and labelled object, they require relational symmetry: the capacity to reverse a learned relation A->B into B->A. In non-human animals, such flexible encoding of bidirectional relations has been difficult to obtain experimentally, mostly due to their failure to reverse stimulus relations. This apparent absence of symmetry suggests an evolutionary gap at the origin of human language. Yet, a number of procedural biases, inlcuding perceptual ones, may account for this failure to demonstrate symmetry. Moreover, all studies have relied on specific motor outputs to reveal symmetry, whereas symmetric relations may simply not be learned in such an explicit form. Using the baboon as model primate species, and a worldwide unique, automatized, high-throughput behavioral platform as experimental system, we will conduct new experiments to re-assess this question. We will implement relational learning procedures which correct for all biases identified in past experiments, and rely on implicit rather than explicit measurements to test for the emergence of symmetry. Furthermore, we will study the effects of symmetry on stimulus networks, to assess the baboons’ abilities for flexible relational encoding when more stimuli are involved. A crucial feature of natural intelligence such as relational symnetry ought to be also considered in Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems, as their relational learning abilities are still limited. We will thus investigate the capacity of existing connectionnist models (e.g. Recurrent Neural Networks) to learn symmetrical associations of stimuli, and will explore new architectures able to implement symmetry. Both symmetry or its absence in baboons would inform about the fundaments of human cognition. Hence, far-reaching implications are expected from this project, which may open new avenues of research in both AI and psychology.

Mots clés : relational symmetry, relational learning, equivalence classes, symbols, comparative psychology, animal experimentation, associative learning, language, artificial neural entworks, connectionnist model

Participants :
- Centre national de la recherche scientifique (France) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 184707.84 €
Projet PhonPred (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2016)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Languages of the world have their unique ways of putting sounds together. For example, word-initial /ŋ/ sounds bizarre to an English but not to a Cantonese speaker’s ear (e.g. /ŋoi/ “love”). These constraints on where sounds tend to occur and how they are typically sequenced within a word are called “phonotactic”. Phonotactic constraints are a source of significant regularity in the sound system of any language. How do humans exploit this phonotactic regularity when they produce speech? This project will provide a general and yet unprecedented theoretical framework of how this happens in a variety of communicative situations. We will develop three converging approaches in order to achieve this goal. First, we will bring together insights from linguistic theory and computational linguistics to develop a comprehensive characterization of phonotactic dependencies in English. Second, we will investigate how phonotactic information is represented in the human mind and how it is used in speaking. To achieve this, we will generate concrete predictions using cognitive psychological models of speech production and reading aloud, thus bridging the gap between these two fields of scientific enquiry that have been long treated as independent. We will simultaneously exploit tools and tasks from cognitive psychology and experimental phonetics to test our predictions empirically through behavioural experimentation. Finally, we will capitalise on advances in the science of learning, to determine phonotactic dependencies shape the acquisition of literacy. This research will shed light on mechanisms involved in the processing of sounds during reading, speaking, and the acquisition of these skills, and will inform the development of novel methods for teaching and enhancing literacy in first and second language.

Mots clés : reading aloud, speech production, phonotactics, learning, cognitive modelling

Participants :
- University of London (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 183454.8 €
Projet MOSAiC (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2018)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Large multimode photonic quantum states are of paramount importance in the race to build a quantum computer and have been recently proposed as platforms for universal quantum computing. This class of quantum states has been experimentally demonstrated at the optical frequencies, but it is still not established in the microwave range, where one can take advantage of much higher non-linear interactions without introducing dissipation or dephasing. The aim of this proposal is to experimentally generate multimode quantum states of microwave photons with superconducting quantum circuits. The project aims at the control and characterization of quantum correlations between different frequency modes in microwave photons interacting with superconducting quantum devices. In order to reach this ambitious goal, non-linear processes in parametric Josephson devices will be explored. In particular, non-linear interactions will be engineered to generate multimode quantum correlations. This research will contribute to generate and manipulate very large multimode quantum states for the first time in the microwave regime. Controlling this kind of quantum states would represent a decisive step forward in the realisation of quantum information processing in the framework of Circuit Quantum Electrodynamics.

Mots clés : quantum correlations, circuit quantum electrodynamics, microwave photonics, superconducting circuits, entanglement, quantum information processing

Participants :
- Centre national de la recherche scientifique (France) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 184707.84 €
Projet Laminar-PL (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2018)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Learning and experience shape key cognitive functions of the adult human brain and support our ability to interact in complex and dynamic environments. Yet, the brain mechanisms that support our ability to learn from cluttered and inherently ambiguous sensory information and improve our perceptual decisions with training remain largely unknown. My proposal aims to investigate: (i) the neural basis of perceptual learning in the human visual cortex (ii) the neural computations that underlie perceptual learning and (iii) the brain connectivity (i.e. how different brain areas work together) that supports behavioural improvement due to training. To achieve this, I will combine behavioural paradigms measuring perceptual learning, ultra high-field 7T imaging of brain activations at the finer scale of laminar layers (i.e. across cortical depth) and state-of-the-art computational modelling. This integrated multidisciplinary approach will contribute significantly to our knowledge of how the brain optimises its capacity for adaptive behaviour through learning and experience. Further the proposed work has potential practical implications for the design of education and rehabilitation training programmes in life-long development and disease. Finally, this interdisciplinary research experience boosted by collaborations with industrial partners will benefit greatly my career development to an independent researcher in the field of computational cognitive neuroscience.

Mots clés : perceptual learning, laminar brain imaging, forward encoding model

Participants :
- University of Cambridge (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 212933.76 €
Projet HippBoundariesPE (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2015)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Life provides us with a continuous stream of information that ends up being organized in long-term memory as distinct events. How does this occur? Leading theories posit that surprising occurrences (when prediction of the immediate future fails) are interpreted by the system as event boundaries that segment ongoing experience. Will any type of surprise induce such segmentation? Moreover, how are these segments then laid down in memory as discrete units? The proposed research addresses these key issues in a two phase study, combining fMRI of healthy individuals with a neuropsychological study of amnesic patients, and using tailored film clips designed to dissociate between distinct forms of prediction error (PE) – low-level PE (salient perceptual changes) and high-level PE (explicit expectancy of an upcoming change). We hypothesize that the key region in this process may be the hippocampus, a region strongly linked to formation of episodic memory. Combining a 7T fMRI study (enabling distinction between hippocampal subfields) with a study of patients with focal hippocampal lesions will enable us to elucidate the nature and necessity of hippocampal involvement in segmentation. The significance of this study lays first in its potential to illuminate how real-life events are registered to memory, a process which is likely to differ significantly from the encoding of brief, simple stimuli that have been employed previously. The importance of studying encoding of complex events has recently received increasing recognition, yet this is still only at its infancy, with very few studies employing this approach. Combining the complementary expertise of the researcher and the host, the proposed research aims to identify what constitutes an event boundary in mnemonic processing. Through future collaborations, this has the potential to lead to applicable interventions for improving normal memory and ameliorating mnemonic disorders.

Mots clés : fmri, episodic encoding, long term memory, event boundaries, amnesia, hippocampus

Participants :
- University of Cambridge (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 103563.29 €
- UK Research and Innovation (Royaume-Uni) — Partner, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 79891.51 €
Projet LigMem (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : CLOSED

LigMem action will purposely enhance the Fellow’s expertise in the field of biopolymer synthesis through an experimental research project to develop “Reversibly cross-linkable Lignin-based Membranes for carbon dioxide (CO2) capture”. Within the project framework commercially available lignin will undergo functionalisation with CO2-philic groups and reversibly cross-linkable moieties. LigMem will potentially encourage the transition from fossil fuel to plant-derived polymer precursors and facilitate the diversification of the membrane market. Importantly, the reversible cross-linking between polymer chains will minimise the disposable membrane waste by facilitating membrane recycling. The experienced researcher (ER) will be extensively trained in the multidisciplinary field of cutting-edge polymer science, membrane technology, and industrial application of biopolymers and gas separation membranes. The Fellow will acquire exquisite experience at the host department of Biobased Materials at the University of Maastricht (NE), as well as at academic and industrial partners: the University of Twente (NE), the Institute on Membrane Technology (IT), and Evonik Fibres GmbH (AT). After successfully completing this action, the ER will re-enforce her professional maturity and complement the European research network with her expertise in industrially relevant interdisciplinary field of biopolymer applications. The results generated by LigMem project will support the EU stride towards the diversification of the raw materials consumption and to provide sustainable alternatives for various technology markets. The synthesised biopolymers will offer new perspectives both in membrane applications and in broader polymer film and coating industries. Importantly, the LigMem action will establish a close collaboration between the involved partners from the Netherlands, Italy and Austria to further excel the EU scientific prowess.

Mots clés : gas separation, hollowfibres, co2 capture, membranes, recycling, reversible cross linking

Participants :
- Maastricht University (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 187572.48 €
Projet ZNEOPSIN_II (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2016)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Light impacts on life by modulating the physiology and behaviour of most living organisms. Both vertebrates and invertebrates have developed an extensive and diverse range of photoreceptor structures and photopigments, which mediate these light responses. Clearly light is used for vision, being detected by specialized rod and cone cells in the retina and processed by the visual centers of the brain. However, light also regulates many non-visual processes, and novel nonvisual photopigments are regularly being discovered. Recent studies have shown a role for non-visual photoreception in seasonal responses, activation of DNA repair mechanisms, entrainment of the circadian clock and sleep-wake regulation, but the mechanisms are far less understood. This phenomenon is particularly extensive in teleosts such as zebrafish, where all tissues and cells of the adult and larval body are directly light responsive. The purpose of ZNEOPSIN_II is to determine the role that non-visual light detection plays in early development in zebrafish, focusing on neurobiology, the entrainment of the circadian clock and specific aspects of behaviour. I will take advantage of zebrafish, a genetic model organism available at the host lab, a leading zebrafish circadian biology lab at University College London, which is also one of the larger zebrafish research communities in Europe. The latest technical approaches for gene knockdown (CRISPR/Cas genome editing), and luminescent/fluorescent imaging, together with classical molecular biology techniques, will be combined with state of the art behavioural assays developed in zebrafish. The results of ZNEOPSIN_II will provide invaluable insights into the biological significance of non-visual light detection, and the roles played by a range of newly discovered opsins, as well as provide a junior researcher with the best possible training in both molecular biology, functional neurobiology and behaviour.

Mots clés : photopigments, zebrafish, circadian entrainment, gene expression, opsin, behaviour

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