Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-actions-marie-curie-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet FlatHolo (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2021)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Progress in quantum gravity over the past decades has been to a large extent triggered by the holographic principle, the proposal that bulk regions of spacetime in quantum gravity are dual to non-gravitational, quantum theories living on the boundary. While a precise realization in AdS string theory was found by Maldacena, the universal scaling law of black hole entropy with area suggests that similar dualities should exist more generally, for example in our own universe which is flat to a good degree of approximation. Nevertheless, an understanding of the nature of the holographic duality in flat space is still missing. The goal of this proposal is to study aspects of a recently proposed two-dimensional holographic formulation of four-dimensional asymptotically flat quantum gravity, broadly defined as any theory that reduces to general relativity at long distances. In this framework, the fundamental observables live on a two-dimensional sphere at infinity and are in one-to-one correspondence with bulk scattering amplitudes. These new observables known as celestial amplitudes compute scattering in a basis of asymptotic boost as opposed to the usual energy momentum eigenstates and obey a wide range of constraints. During this fellowship I will investigate two main aspects of flat space holography. On the one hand, I will study the celestial imprints of black hole scattering by computing celestial amplitudes with massive particles and analyzing their symmetry properties. On the other hand I will exploit the flat space limit of AdS holography and apply conformal bootstrap techniques to derive new constraints on the observables of four-dimensional asymptotically flat gravity. These results will provide insights into non-perturbative aspects of gravity in asymptotically flat spacetimes and will establish new connections among different fields and communities including asymptotic symmetries, scattering amplitudes and holography.

Mots clés : gravity, quantum field theory

Participants :
- Université d'Amsterdam (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 187624.32 €
Projet FVNLC (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2021)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Techniques based on neural networks (NNs), the study of which is often referred to as ‘deep learning’, have recently been shown to be extremely effective as a basis for data compression systems. I will develop the new field of ‘neural compression’, which has emerged around these ideas, focussing primarily on lossless compression in the two directions which I believe are most important:  Scale: NNs go hand in hand with parallel hardware, and I will investigate new parallel compression algorithms for efficiently compressing huge quantities of data. Specifically, I will develop two entirely new compression paradigms: Firstly, compression of volumetric images using generative models based on 3D convolutions, applied to medical imaging, where teleradiology and new cloud-based analysis make the need for efficient compression particularly acute. And secondly, compression of audio and video using time-series latent variable models, known as ‘state space models’, which offer uniquely efficient utilization of parallel hardware.  Systems: I will research, design and implement a domain specific language (DSL) for concisely expressing codecs which are guaranteed to be lossless by construction. Until now, implementations of compression systems always separate the implementation of the encoder from the decoder, and rely on an ad-hoc debugging and testing process to ensure that data are recovered correctly. During my PhD, I discovered that it is sometimes possible for a computer to automatically convert an encoder function into a decoder, and vice versa, potentially halving the amount of code. I will explore the limits, in terms of flexibility and efficiency, of this novel idea, using insights from ‘automatic differentiation’, a related functional transformation, on which I am a leading expert.

Mots clés : learned data compression probabilistic generative models probabilistic machine learning lossless data compression

Participants :
- Université d'Amsterdam (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 187624.32 €
Projet ANIMODD (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2022)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : SIGNED

How can we create animate synthetic materials, able to sense, compute, and respond to their environment? To achieve these animate properties, one emerging class of materials stands out: odd solids. Odd solids use microscopic energy injection to break basic symmetries like Newton’s 3rd law, resulting in far-from-equilibrium phenomena forbidden in passive materials. These phenomena promise a toolkit for designing animate functionalities like robust locomotion and pattern formation. However, to realise animate properties odd solids face a fundamental challenge: microscopic energy injection inherently leads to nonlinear mechanical deformations, yet this nonlinear regime remains completely unexplored. In this proposal I will surpass this limitation, by characterising the nonlinear excitations of an odd solid, then using these excitations as a toolkit for designing animate properties. Using continuum mechanical theory and lattice simulations, I will derive new fundamental results on travelling patterns and topological defects in odd solids, and determine how these nonlinear excitations interact with environmental cues like substrate friction. Crucially, I will then use these excitation-environment interactions to realise animate properties in a ready-made table-top experimental system. This proposal marries my expertise in nonlinear excitations in active systems, with the host’s expertise in the experimental development of odd solids, to push our fundamental understanding of odd interactions beyond the linear regime. My results will open a new line of research in active matter and animate materials, applicable across systems in which odd interactions can be designed – from robotic matter, to living systems, down to the microscale. By positioning me at the heart of the emerging field of animate matter, and equipping me with a powerful new skillset of experimental experience and techniques, this Marie Curie action will take my scientific career to the next level.

Mots clés : odd elasticity, nonreciprocity, active solids, active matter, mechanical metamaterials

Participants :
- Université d'Amsterdam (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 203464.32 €
Projet ChemiLUCA (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2022)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

All modern organisms feature chemiosmosis (ion-motive-force driven processes, including membrane transport and ATP production), and therefore the Last Common Universal Ancestor (LUCA) is believed to be chemiosmotic; although contradictorily. As for chemiosmosis to happen, cells utilise membranes relatively impermeable to the coupling ion (H+ or Na+). It has previously been shown that, theoretically, LUCA could drive chemiosmosis using a geo-chemical H+-gradient but only if it had a leaky membrane. However, a leaky membrane rapidly achieves electrochemical equilibrium offsetting the H+ influx. For the H+ influx, and therefore chemiosmosis, to continue, the membrane needs a system to pump H+.  Paradoxically, pumping H+ across a leaky membrane is futile. A potential solution has previously been hypothesised in the form of membranes leaky to H+ that harboured: an ATP-synthase coupled to both H+ and Na+, and an antiporter that pumps out Na+ for incoming H+. Such a Na+/H+ antiporter could convert the geochemical H+ gradient into a Na+-gradient. It would be advantageous to do so as a Na+-gradient could be better sustained by the LUCA membrane and could drive ATP production via the promiscuous ATP-synthase. My project aims at obtaining empiricalmvalidation for this hypothesis. To do so, a promiscuous ATP-synthase will be co-reconstituted, alongside a Na+/H+ antiporter, into fatty-acid-containing hybrid liposomes (made from fatty acids and other amphiphilic (phospho)lipids). Ion-gradients will be imposed on the liposomes by pH-jump or decarboxylase-catalysed alkalisation methods to test whether the system could: a) convert the H+-gradient into a Na+-gradient via the Na+/H+ antiporter, and b) use the Na+- gradient to drive ATP production via the promiscuous ATP-synthase. This study is critical to understand the evolution of chemiosmotic systems and will have implications in evolutionary and synthetic biology as well as astrobiology.

Mots clés : membrane biology, chemiosmosis, origin of life, last universal common ancestor, protocell, membrane transport bioenergetics, membrane transport, atp synthesis, ion motive force

Participants :
- Université de Groningue (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 187624.32 €
Projet MGEMPOW (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2022)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Ethnic minority women such as Roma and Arab-Muslim women are one of the most disempowered groups in Europe. They face both gender and ethnic discrimination already in schools, resulting in weaker academic motivation and achievement, which then negatively impacts their professional opportunities, societal status, and welfare of their community. The achievement gap is often explained through structural barriers (e.g., segregation, poverty), however less academic and policy-making attention is paid on the individual and psychological barriers, such as on the impact of educators’ prejudice. The goal of the project is to validate an unexplored aspect of prejudice among educators, which is especially likely to be directed at minority girls and diminish their performance, namely paternalism, which is identified here as educators’ benevolent yet patronizing attitudes towards students. Firstly, the fellow aims to test how educators’ paternalism impact discrimination in schools, and how it produces minority girls’ psychological barriers to achievement. Secondly, to develop psychological interventions for educators and for minority girls to reduce paternalism and its impact, with the overall aim to improve students’ academic trajectory, meanwhile empower them to challenge their group’s situation in society. The project is focused on Roma minority in Hungary, and on Arab-Muslim minority in the Netherlands. The project is composed of four research programs, testing 1) educators’ paternalistic prejudice and discrimination, and 2) minority girls’ internalized paternalism, psychological academic barriers and performance, and their group identification. Paternalism-specific psychological intervention programs 3) for educators and 4) for students are designed and will be tested for short–long-term impact. The fellow employs quantitative (correlational, experimental) research methods and uses self-report and behavioral measures of discrimination, performance, and empowerment.

Mots clés : prejudice, prejudice reduction intervention, collective action

Participants :
- Université d'Amsterdam (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 215429.62 €
Projet Cu-CATARMs (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2022)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The proposal that Cu-CATARMs (Asymmetric Copper(I) Catalysis in Artificial Metalloenzymes) aims to design and develop a proficient artificial metalloenzyme which contains a low oxidation state copper (Cu(I)) center, enabling a series of enantioselective new-to-nature transformations in a protein environment. The Roelfes group has been engaged in creation of LmrR based ARMs for the asymmetric copper-catalyzed new-to-nature reactions. Reliable approaches have been developed by the Roelfes group to efficiently recruited the copper(II) species to the LmrR pore, either introducing metal binding unnatural amino acids through in vivo stop codon suppression or supramolecular assembly via the π–π stacking interaction between tryptophan moieties and metal complex. Our approach is enabled by reducing the copper(II) center which is chelated by anchoring moiety of LmrR to copper(I) center with mild and efficient reductants in situ (objective 1). This design of copper(I) catalysis in LmrR based artificial metalloenzyme will be exploited to develop the following objectives: Objective 2. Asymmetric conjugate addition of alkynes; Objective 3. Asymmetric intramolecular cyclopropanation; Objective 4. Apart from developing the novel methodologies, we will also devote ourselves to reveal the detailed mechanism, aiming to provide theoretical guidance for future works. Overall, the successful development of Cu-CATARMs project will represent a proficient strategy to apply low oxidation state transition metals in enzyme catalysis. The results of the project will inspire the development of C-C/C-N bond formation reactions through copper(I) catalysis in ARMs and offer new strategy for the organic chemistry and material communities when planning a synthetic route for a specific target.

Mots clés : copper i species, artificial metalloenzymes, enzyme design, asymmetric catalysis, mechanism study

Participants :
- Université de Groningue (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 203464.32 €
Projet CODAG (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2021)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Mathematics
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The overall goal of the project is to study relations between different measures of complexity of dynamical systems, fractal sets, and groups. The main objects of our interest are iterated monodromy groups (IMGs), which are self-similar groups naturally associated to certain dynamical systems, such as the iteration of a rational map on the Riemann sphere. IMGs provide a prominent bridge between dynamical systems and geometric group theory, and their study has been a vibrant topic in the last 20 years. In the project, we will focus on three aspects of this modern research. Subproject A: Decomposition theory of maps and groups In a recent work with collaborators, I established a novel decomposition theorem for rational maps based on the structure of their Julia sets. I aim to extend this result to the case of contracting self-similar groups, which will provide a new entry to the renowned Sullivan dictionary. I will also explore computational aspects of IMGs and implement the decomposition in the computer algebra system GAP.  Subproject B: Algebraic properties of IMGs Quite unexpectedly, the IMGs of even very simple maps provide examples of groups with interesting properties that are “exotic” from the point of view of classical group theory. However, we still lack general theory that will unify these nice examples. The main objective in this research direction is to relate dynamical properties of maps to algebraic properties, such as growth and amenability, of the respective IMGs.  Subproject C: Spectral properties of Schreier graphs of IMG The study of the Laplacian spectrum and spectral measures occupies a significant place in the geometric group theory. Computations of spectra for the Schreier graphs of self-similar groups have recently been an active filed of research. Surprisingly, it connects to multidimensional dynamics and Schroedinger operators associated to aperiodic order. The goal of this subproject is to explore such connections in the case of IMGs.

Mots clés : dynamical systems, iteration of rational maps, self similar groups, iterated monodromy groups, growth, amenability, spectral theory, schreier graphs

Participants :
- Université de la Sarre (Allemagne) — Partner, associated partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
- Université d'Amsterdam (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 203464.32 €
Projet ETHNOSCHISM (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2021)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : CLOSED

ETHNOSCHISM traces an ambient, diffuse but influential ethnotype, that of a manly, rough-hewn North vs. a frivolous, charming South – the former framed in terms of its ‘Germanic’ ethnolinguistic roots, the latter as ‘Romance’ or Latin. It analyses the widely-ramifying discursive diffusion of this ethnotype in its continuing ‘banal’ presence as a frame for social and political relations. The subject is highly topical, raising the still-burning issue of national intra-European divisions in terms of imputed ‘national characters’ by going it back to the years of their crystallisation (1914-1929) and studying the impact of cultural representations have in the political prejudices and ideologies. ETHNOSCHISM develops a new, interdisciplinary theory of the European North-South-opposition by studying its conceptual history from a radically interdisciplinary basis, combining the latest insights in 3 related specialisms in the culture-historical Humanities: imagology, the history of knowledge production (namely in racial theorizing), the intellectual history of European nationalisms. It studies ethnotypes in a completely new and original way, using them as a common discursive factor in the cultural field of representations and the political history of international relations. The methodological toolbox includes methods and approaches from different disciplines: the transnational and interdisciplinary history of national thought, Discourse Historical Approach, Imagology. The outputs include: two articles, a commented anthology, an edited book; two academic workshops. Measures to communicate the project activities include a website on the project, a temporary exhibition, the creation of an Educational Package for secondary-school students. Research and training activities at the Dept. of European Studies (UvA) will directly benefit my career prospects, equipping me with new skills and knowledge, and placing me at the forefront of the field as an interdisciplinary researcher.


Participants :
- Université d'Amsterdam (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 203464.32 €
Projet HiTempMagMat (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2022)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : SIGNED

This proposal aims at discovering entirely new spin-driven magnetoelectric materials with relatively high critical temperature and strong magnetoelectric coupling. Apart from the polycrystalline materials, high quality single crystals will be prepared. Apart from their far-reaching technological prospects, the proposed materials with distinct noncolinear and non-coplanar spin structures may further shed new light on the understanding of the mechanism of spin-driven magnetoelectric effect in various complex magnets. These materials will be further studied for their potential multicaloric effect (using their magnetoelectric properties), which is crucial for the emerging field of solid-state cooling technology. Unlike the extensively studied magnetocaloric effect, the multicaloric effect due to the combined effect of magnetic and electric ordering (in multiferroic magnetoelectric materials) mostly remained unexplored, while it has a huge potential for showing highly efficient solid-state cooling effect. In this regard, this study may be significantly important to make substantial advancement in the field of solid-state cooling. In addition, the proposal also aims to make bi-layer epitaxial thin films of the potential new magnetoelectric materials along with a ferromagnetic material to realize the electric field control of the magnetic switching by altering the magnetic exchange bias effect under various electric fields (utilizing the magnetoelectric effect). Therefore, the new results in the field of novel magnetoelectric materials and their expected potential applications in multicaloric effect and magnetic switching, can be potentially important for the future direction of spintronics, data storage, and solid-state refrigeration technology. The research will be carried out using cutting-edge methods of synthesis (polycrystal, single crystal, and thin films) and advanced characterization techniques available in the host institute and their collaborating labs.

Mots clés : magnetoelectrics, type ii multiferroics, single crystal growth, multicaloric effect, magnetic exchange bias effect, magnetic switching

Participants :
- Université de Groningue (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 203464.32 €
Projet DIRE-YY1 (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2023)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Climate change and increasing exposure to environmental stress make adaptation and defence responses to one of the most significant factors for crop yield and quality. At molecular level, stress-inducible master regulators and key transcription factors translate the stress-signalling into defence and developmental responses at the level of chromatin and gene expression. The dual function transcription factor YIN YANG 1 (YY1) is evolutionary conserved between animal and plant kingdom. In Arabidopsis, the ABA-inducible YY1 is a negative regulator and key component of ABA responses, contributes to the plant resistance to fungal infection and UV-B radiation, and controls flowering time. Some stress related functions of YY1 are conserved between Arabidopsis and Populus tree. Published and the preliminary data indicate that the stress-inducible YY1 in Arabidopsis is a hub that converts stress-signals into defence and developmental responses through interaction with transcription and epigenetic factors controlling common target genes. However, neither the protein-protein interactome nor the direct target genes of YY1 were intensively investigated. On the level of protein-protein interactome of YY1, the comparison of published YY1-Flag IP-MS data with the preliminary Y2H screen data did not find any overlap, although both groups of YY1 interaction candidates contained transcription and epigenetic regulators. These findings and theoretical considerations suggest that large parts of the 'dark interactome' of YY1 wait still to be discovered. Regarding the direct target genes, the proposed ChIP-Seq approaches are the first attempt to study YY1-DNA binding at a global scale. The anticipated results will have a deep impact on understanding of the complex protein-protein interactome of YY1, will identify the direct target genes of YY1, and will contribute to the development of applied approaches in crop plants that could benefit from optimised stress responses orchestrated by YY1.

Mots clés : epigenetics genetic analysis transcriptional gene regulation environmental stress root development

Participants :
- Université Heinrich Heine de Düsseldorf (Allemagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 189687.36 €