Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-actions-marie-curie-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet DEEP3P (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2019)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Investigating the complex structure and functioning of biological systems through light microscopy represents a foundational pillar of the life sciences. However, the very complexity of the samples cellular structure leads to one of the main limitations of optical microscopy: light scattering confines it to the outer most tissue layers. In the past decades, multiphoton microscopy successfully extended the accessible depth ranges and on a different front, advances in optical wavefront shaping showed that scattering can be compensated for, even in regimes where light fully lost its initial directionality. The aim of this action is to establish scattering correction through wavefront shaping in higher-order multiphoton microscopy, namely three-photon fluorescence imaging, to surpass the scattering barrier and reach unprecedented depths in optical microscopy.

Mots clés : light in complex media, wavefront shaping, multiphoton microscopy, three photon fluorescence, adaptive optics

Participants :
- Sorbonne Université (France) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 184707.84 €
Projet IAL (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2017)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Invocations of the imagination to describe and explain aspects of our thought and action are commonplace all across philosophy: in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, philosophy of mind, of science, and so on. Beyond philosophy, imagination is also invoked in psychology, religious studies, English literature, anthropology, and other disciplines. The diversity of these invocations raises the worry that there is no unanimous conception of imagination lying behind them; if this is so, the explanatory concept being invoked is ambiguous and perhaps vacuous. The aim of this project is to argue for a unified conception of imagination, the lens approach, via three research objectives: (1) to motivate a unified conception by arguing that it’s possible and desirable; (2) to articulate and argue for the lens approach as the best such conception; (3) to apply the approach to two problems of imagination, thus demonstrating its utility. Each objective will result in two papers. The project also incorporates a fourth outreach objective involving training and participation in public engagement. The project matches the theoretical expertise, in-depth topic knowledge, and international training of the Experienced Researcher (ER) with the empirical experience, wide subject background, and advantageous collaboration networks of the supervisor, Bence Nanay, and the host organisation, the University of Antwerp’s Centre for Philosophical Psychology. The project will substantially improve the ER’s career prospects, especially given the supervisor’s excellent track record of training post-doctoral researchers; meanwhile, the host will benefit from the ER’s contribution to its research activities, and acquire greater networking and collaboration opportunities both during and after the project.

Mots clés : imagination, philosophy of mind, transformation, imitation, simulation, visualization, empathy

Participants :
- University of Antwerp (Belgique) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 160800.0 €
Projet SIZE (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2017)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Irrigated areas contribute c. 40% of the worldwide crop production and consume c. 70% of all freshwater resources. Knowing how to meet the food demands of an ever-growing population without compromising environmental integrity is thus a pressing issue of global concern. Following the line of evidence gathered for organisms, financial corporations and cities, size (e.g. the area, the dimensions) seems to be a master variable conditioning the behavior of irrigation systems as well. However, our knowledge on how size conditions irrigated systems is comparatively fragmentary and lacks in formalization due to overreliance in case studies. This sets our capacity to ensure their sustainability in very fragile ground. My project will break through this limitation by combining allometry, the study of global irrigation datasets and the collection of field data in irrigation systems of Spain with the techniques to be learned at the host institutions: dynamic modeling in Princeton University (USA) and uncertainty/sensitivity analysis in University of Bergen (Norway). My project will specifically tackle two questions: 1) Which attributes of ISs scale with size? 2) How does a change in size condition the behavior of ISs against shocks?. This research project will turn me into one of the most transdisciplinar, comprehensive specialists on irrigation systems on the international scene, and will yield highly relevant results for both the scientific and policy-making community: it will increase our knowledge on size as a universal constraint, and endow us with better understanding of the risks and benefits associated with the creation/management of small and large irrigation systems.

Mots clés : irrigation agriculture, social ecological systems, sustainability, dynamic modelling, uncertainty, sensitivity analysis

Participants :
- University of Bergen (Norvège) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 276330.6 €
- Princeton University (Etats-Unis) — Partner, organization partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
Projet ISLANDPALECO (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2015)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Island ecosystems host a significant proportion of global biodiversity, but their rich insular biotas are also more vulnerable and less resistant to novel pressures than continental biotas. Human colonization has been a relatively recent event on most islands globally, and has nearly always resulted in devastating losses of biodiversity. The Canary Islands were no exception; these oceanic islands were colonized by aborigines more than 2000 years ago and later by Europeans, and have been transformed since this time. Despite being one of the most biodiverse regions within Europe and a target for EU biodiversity policies, there is a key knowledge gap about the pre-human state and natural variability of unmodified Canarian ecosystems that could help planners and managers to guide their strategies. This makes the Canaries the perfect place to reconstruct baseline ecosystem states and the long-term impacts of human activities. ISLANDPALECO will assess the timing and extent of human impact on Canary Island ecosystems by providing detailed reconstructions of past environments, combining leading edge and conventional palaeoecological tools and integrating the results in conservation ecology and management strategies. The project will provide new expertise in Canary Island palaeoenvironmental reconstructions through training the ER in the latest palaeoenvironmental DNA analysis (PalEnDNA) at the Landcare Research Long-Term Ecology Lab, one of the few labs in the world where this rapidly emerging field in palaeoecology is being applied to conservation on island settings. ISLANDPALECO will provide the ER with a new skill set in ancient molecular research that will be transferred to the University of La Laguna where they currently do not exist. This will be the first time that PalEnDNA analysis will be implemented in the Canaries and probably one of the few cases on islands, becoming a valuable benchmark example of the applicability of PalEnDNA analysis in other island regions.

Mots clés : aborigines, ancient dna, conservation ecology, human impact, islands, fossil pollen, vegetation reconstruction

Participants :
- University of La Laguna (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 251276.4 €
- Crown Research Institutes (Nouvelle-Zélande) — Partner, organization partner, Recherche, subvention : 0.0 €
Projet EASY (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2016)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

It has been estimated a threefold increase in the number of obese people in Europe since the 1980’s. Currently, EU countries spend an average of 7% of their public health budgets on diseases linked to obesity. The socio-economic impact of obesity epidemic cannot be overrated. European societal needs require desperately a shift forward in the field of obesity research to be able to build new therapeutics strategies. Recent scientific evidences point toward a role of epigenetic changes as major contributor in the obesity etiology. In the last decades, a huge amount of data clearly link epigenetic dysregulation to obesity onset. Yet, it remains unclear whether epigenetic dysregulation contributes meaningfully to obesity epidemic. Because weight gain only occurs when energy intake exceed energy expenditure, burning off excess fuel represent an attractive path to reduce obesity when diet and exercise are not enough. My preliminary data indicate the histone methyltransferases Suv420h1 and Suv420h2 as pivotal players in metabolism regulation. By using knockout mice specifically in brown adipose tissue, this project aims at dissecting the role of Suv420h proteins in the etiology of obesity. I will combine in vivo and in vitro analyses and genome wide studies to: 1) dissect the role of Suv420h proteins in the epigenetic regulation of the pathways controlling weight balance in response to nutritional or environmental stimuli; 2) identify genes involved in the generation, maintenance or transmission of the epigenetic memory of exposure; 3) provide useful markers or therapeutic targets to treat obesity and metabolic diseases. My results have the potential to translate into therapeutics. This research will contribute to provide new clinical targets against obesity. The Experienced Researcher will emerge from the project with new skills, and the capability to lead her own research group.

Mots clés : h4k20me3, obesity, suv420h, chip seq, rna seq

Participants :
- Istituti di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico (Italie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Organismes privés (hors enseignement), subvention : 168277.2 €
Projet MASIEGE (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2014)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Economic Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

It is aimed to understand the economic consequences of multilateral private information, and to obtain corresponding policy implications. The focus will be on two types of contexts: (i) oligopolistic firms seeking to constitute a collusive agreement, having private information about their costs and/or the quality of their products; (ii) agents trading in an otherwise perfectly competitive environment, having private information about their preferences and/or the quality of the products that they bring to the market. In the presence of multilateral adverse selection, a small number of firms may not be able to reach a cooperative agreement to divide the market if a firm's willingness to cooperate is interpreted as a sign of weakness by the other firms. Knowing that the other firms are willing to cooperate and, therefore, are relatively weak, if a firm is still willing to cooperate, this reveals its weakness to an even greater extent. As a result of such a cascade, firms may never be able to establish a cooperative agreement. In an otherwise perfectly competitive environment plagued by adverse selection, if an agent purchases a good that he/she cannot distinguish from other goods, the agent should receive the good that is the cheapest among those that he/she cannot distinguish from the purchased good. General equilibrium analysis of such economic contexts can be made possible by using an analytical trick of distinguishing goods not only by their physical characteristics but also by the agent that brings them to the market. The novel insights generated from these investigations, and the understanding of their scope of validity, matter to competition policy in oligopolistic and approximately competitive industries. They can also be used as building blocks for further research. In particular, general equilibrium results should be amenable of application to macroeconomic modelling and policy design.

Mots clés : multilateral adverse selection, industrial economics, general equilibrium

Participants :
- Fondation Jean-Jacques Laffont - Toulouse sciences économiques (France) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 138807.0 €
Projet EvoPlans (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2018)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

It is critical to integrate knowledge from multiple disciplines in order to gain a better understanding of the Earth and other terrestrial planets evolution, as well as the effects of this evolution on the expression of surface tectonics. While plate tectonics is currently observed on Earth, both its onset and length of activity are uncertain. Here we will use models of planetary evolution to begin to understand the implications for coupled internal/surface processes through changing lid states over planetary timescales (e.g. C, H2O, and O2, cycles, generation of atmosphere, dynamo generation, and coupled lithosphere-asthenosphere evolution). Further, the internal chemical composition, heterogeneities, and initial conditions within the mantle may be critical factors in setting the evolutionary path of a planet, as such we will determine what role these heterogeneities may play in the evolution of the planet. Finally we seek to understand the controls on the dynamics of a transitional episodic-lid, a state suggested for the early Earth, such as its onset, duration, recurrence interval, and location of overturns, and use these results to assess the implications for planetary development (e.g. dynamo heat flow, generation of atmosphere). This work will begin to address the following open questions: (A) What role does the coupling of internal and surface processes have through changing lid-states? (B) What role do heterogeneities (in viscosity, radiogenics and composition) play in the evolution of the planet? (C) What controls the dynamics of the enigmatic transitional episodic-lid?

Mots clés : plate tectonics, planetary evolution, dynamics, habitability

Participants :
- Cardiff University (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 212933.76 €
Projet DECISIONSEQ (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2017)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

It is essential for survival across the animal kingdom to make appropriate choices depending on the environmental context and the internal state. Nevertheless, how decision-making is implemented in the nervous system by specific circuits remains a significant gap in our knowledge. Many actions are physically mutually exclusive so competitive interactions must exist to enable the selection of one behavior and concomitant full suppression of all alternatives. Often, behaviors are not single actions but multiple actions organized into sequences that allow the animals to achieve their goals and mechanisms must be in place to regulate the transition between the behaviors in a sequence. Here again the network architecture underlying the generation of action sequences is not known with synaptic resolution. The difficulty in determining the detailed network architectures underlying decision-making and sequence generation is primarily due to the challenges in mapping connectivity between neurons with synaptic resolution and establishing causality between neurons and behaviors with cellular resolution with the model systems used. We propose to study circuit mechanisms of selection, repression and transitions between actions and fill the above described knowledge gap. Our multidisciplinary approach will combine neural manipulation during behavior, electron microscopy (EM) reconstruction of neuronal connectivity with synaptic resolution in the tractable model system, the Drosophila larva with modeling and quantitative behavioral analysis. We aim at determining with unprecedented resolution the network architectures and circuit mechanisms underlying competitive interactions and sequence transitions. Determining basic principles of behavioral choice and sequence implementation in the tractable genetic model system will lay the basis for future investigations in larger, more complex systems.

Mots clés : behavioral choice, behavioral sequences, neural circuits

Participants :
- Institut Pasteur (France) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 173076.0 €
Projet PASS (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2014)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

It is now recognised that large oceanic detachment faults are fundamentally important along slow-spreading rate portions of the mid-ocean ridge system. These fault systems have been the target of numerous scientific expeditions leading to a new paradigm of “detachment-mode” spreading. However, in the modern oceans this style of spreading can only be documented back to 10-12 Ma. To understand these systems in the deep geological past it is necessary to work on ancient examples of detachment faults in ophiolites, slices of oceanic lithosphere that have been emplaced tectonically onto continental margins and which expose ocean floor structures in 3-D. Recent work in the Mirdita ophiolite of Albania has demonstrated that detachment-mode spreading operated in the Jurassic period. This project will extend this record back to the Palaeozoic, by investigating a detachment system preserved in the Thetford Mines Ophiolite of Canada. An integrated field-based structural and palaeomagnetic investigation will test the hypothesis that this example provides the oldest known analogue for modern oceanic detachment systems. Objectives are to: (i) systematically back-strip successive tectonic events that have affected the ophiolite, in order to recover primary seafloor relationships; (ii) determine whether relative tectonic rotation has occurred across the detachment fault, a defining feature of modern examples; and (iii) quantify the role of large- and small-scale faulting in accommodating displacement within the detachment system. The project will provide: (i) extensive training in field-based tectonic applications of palaeomagnetism, directly complementing the Fellow’s existing expertise and experience in laboratory techniques, thereby allowing her to conduct future investigations in complex tectonic environments; and (ii) engagement with the international oceanic scientific community, opening future opportunities to move into oceanic geodynamic research.

Mots clés : oceanic core complex, oceanic detachment fault, ophiolite, ordovician, canada

Participants :
- University of Plymouth (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 183454.8 €
Projet NANO-DIELECTRICS (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2016)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : CLOSED

It is widely known that metals, such as gold and silver, when suitably structured at the nanometre scale, are able to focus light into very small (sub-wavelength) volumes, greatly enhancing its local intensity. For this unique capability such metallic nanostructures are often referred to as “nanoantennas”. In the last decade, metallic nanoantennas have opened up a wide range of applications in numerous fields, spanning (bio)imaging and sensing to the development of optoelectronic hybrid devices. However, since the mechanism of light confinement relies on the collective oscillation of free electrons, generation of heat via Joule dissipation is inherent to the process and detrimental effects arise for several uses, such as surface-enhanced spectroscopies and nonlinear optics. The central objective of this project is to circumvent this issue through the use of dielectric nanoantennas made of silicon or germanium, which have been proposed recently as low-loss alternatives with relatively high field enhancement capability. Specifically, this research will determine, for the first time, the ability of the dielectric nanoantenna to selectively enhance a molecule’s electric and magnetic dipole emmisions, without perturbing the sample by undesired heating. Furthermore, this project will investigate the coupling of dielectric resonators to suitable nanomaterials for high-efficiency infrared-to-visible light conversion, and will design hybrid arrangements of dielectric and metallic nanostructures to combine the best of both worlds. Finally, dielectric metamaterials will be studied for both enhanced spectroscopies and nonlinear photonics to further improve these characteristics. The results of this work will have significant impact in a number of fields and will represent, for the case of silicon, the perfect scenario for the integration of optical nanoantennas and metamaterials with the extensively used silicon-based optoelectronics technology.

Mots clés : dielectric nanoantennas, dielectric metamaterials, low loss, field enhancement, surface enhanced spectroscopies, second harmonic generation, third harmonic generation

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

Just like digital information processing has revolutionized 20th century technology, quantum information processing and the second quantum revolution are shaping the 21st century. Yet, while classical computing is long set in the path of binary information, the future is still open for quantum information processing, and it would be fatal to force it into the same restrictive paradigm. The goal of this project is to break out of this artificial two-dimensional structure and tap into the large unused potential of high-dimensional quantum information processing. I have extensive expertise in the field of quantum information processing. During my PhD in photonics, I realized the highest fidelity state preparation and measurement of qudits reported to date, and recently I developed a full mathematical and experimental framework for the characterization of quantum coherence in multilevel systems. Building on this expertise, I will develop the first universal qudit quantum processor, using four electronic levels of trapped Ca ions, which are one of the most advanced platforms for quantum information processing. The hosting group of Prof. Rainer Blatt in Innsbruck is a world leader in trapped ion quantum information processing and pioneered all the necessary groundwork, such as laser cooling, coherent control, and large scale entanglement of ions to make this project possible. I will apply the newly developed qudit quantum processor to the quantum simulation of lattice gauge theories of critical interest in high energy physics. The development of this new technology also unlocks a wide range of open questions from quantum simulation to quantum communication and computation, which I and the host institution will be in a unique position to address. This fellowship will give me protected time to realise the proposed research and establish myself as an independent researcher in Europe and an expert in the new paradigm of qudit quantum information processing.

Mots clés : quantum information processing, qudits, quantum simulation, lattice gauge theories, high dimensional quantum systems

Participants :
- Universität Innsbruck (Autriche) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 186167.04 €