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

The security agenda of modern and foreseeable Arctic politics substantially depends on the interactions between the U.S., Russia, and China. The ambition of this project is to figure out how to improve the Arctic regime to make it a more effective instrument for solving security problems amid the global change of power balance. The innovative methodology includes a combination of traditional methods of comparative political analysis, institutional analysis, and critical discourse analysis, along with a novel approach of corpus linguistics. With the first research step, I will study formal components of three states’ participation: I will assess the position of the U.S., Russia, and China in Arctic institutions, three states’ ability to influence the rule-making, and the decision-making processes. However, this comparative study will focus on aspects of the existing regime that orchestrate the three states' behavior or adapt to it, instead of common practice to evaluate great powers as the independent actors. Such an amended approach will bring a completely new light on understanding the dynamics of the Arctic regime transition. The second step will provide an estimation of informal components: I will study for the first time the official discourse of the three actors on the Arctic regime with a special focus on security using the corpus-linguistics approach. Thus, I will clarify the perception of the U.S., Russia, and China as partners or rivals in the Arctic and assess the impact of their political rhetoric on principles of cooperation – if they consider the Arctic as a zone of peace or a zone of confrontation. The third step will provide a new level of understanding of the Arctic regime's potential for mitigating contradictions in the security field while pointing out relevant instruments and solutions. The project will fast track my academic career from the junior research fellow position to the full professor and prepare me to apply for ERC Starting Grant.

Mots clés : arctic, russia, china, regime theory, security, corpus linguistics, critical discourse analysis, security regime, interdisciplinarity

Participants :
- UiT The Arctic University of Norway (Norvège) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 202158.72 €
Projet Oligo-DNP (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2017)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The silicate speciation process is of large scientific and industrial interest because determines the morphology and reactivity of the silica products and biological control of the silica morphology has generated an interest for novel mechanisms for biomimetic silica synthesis. These processes occur typically in very dilute solutions (in the mM range) and no general approach is currently used to report on both the liquid-state speciation and the solid-state atomic-level morphological characterization during the speciation process. As a result, an important gap in the current understanding needs to be addressed. Here we propose to combine cutting edge dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP) in its two main branches, dissolution DNP and MAS-DNP, to investigate the silicon-based materials formation process. The project is original and of high impact and can currently be performed only at the host institution. Dissolution-DNP and MAS-DNP experiments will be used to elucidate the speciation in dilute solutions and the structural morphology at different stages during the oligomeric formation process of silicon-based materials. In this way, a complete information can be obtained. The immediate result can be envisaged either in an important expansion of the host group research activities into dissolution DNP, and the applicant acquisition of important and strategic skills in chemistry, spin physics, DNP and solid-state NMR. The medium-term goal during the course of this action is to apply the techniques to a broader range of silicon-based materials, and the applicant acquisition and implementation of new organizational and managerial skills.

Mots clés : nuclear magnetic resonance, hyperpolarization, dynamic nuclear polarization, dissolution dynamic nuclear polarization, magic angle spinning dynamic nuclear polarization

Participants :
- Board of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (Suisse) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 187419.6 €
Projet iChip (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2016)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The small intestine forms a barrier that protects us against the outer world. Here commensal bacteria are tolerated while pathogens are effectively fought off. Occasionally, however, pathogenic bacteria colonize the intestine causing different diseases, which constitute a huge burden worldwide. The ability to study interactions of pathogenic bacteria with the intestine will provide new insights into the disease mechanisms, and new therapeutic targets and ways to prevent disease occurrence. Current animal and 2D models based on tumor cell lines both have shortcomings as they react differently to pathogenic bacteria when compared to healthy human tissues. Primary intestinal epithelial cells can now be cultured as intestinal mini-guts, 3D mini organs. This has partly overcome some of these shortcomings with mouse models and tumor cell lines. These mini-guts are, however, challenged topologically as the intestinal lumen is facing towards the inside of the structures. This makes it difficult to access the luminal surface and study microbial interactions with the epithelium. Furthermore, the static culture conditions do not mimic the in vivo conditions closely enough. I will use microfluidics and microengineering to develop an intestine-on-a-chip device based on primary human intestinal epithelial cells expanded as mini-guts but assayed on mimics of the natural villi structures found in the small intestine. Additionally, the model will allow the fluidic (sheer stress) and mechanic (peristalsis) microenvironment to be closely controlled in order to generate in vivo-like conditions. This is important to study as e.g. Crohn’s disease, that induces suppressed peristalsis, is associated with intestinal inflammation and bacterial overgrowth. Altogether, this intestine-on-a-chip device will go beyond state-of-the-art and for the first time give causality to the number of correlative studies reporting on how commensal and pathogenic gut bacteria affect the human physiology.

Mots clés : microfluidics, organ on a chip, intestinal stem cells

Participants :
- University of Copenhagen (Danemark) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 212194.8 €
Projet OPSINEVOL (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2014)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The spectacular colours displayed by males during courtship often result from sexual selection by female choice. Female visual perception should therefore play a critical role in the evolution of male colours. In guppies, both sexual dimorphism and male colour have evolved multiple times as a trade-off between female preference and predation pressures. Populations under low-predation regimes have repeatedly and independently evolved more colourful, sexually dimorphic males, and females with relatively strong preferences for colour. I will study opsins, the visual pigments that mediate vision, to shed light into the evolutionary relationship between male colour and female preferences. Guppies present a unique opportunity to systematically study multiple aspects of opsin evolution, asking whether it mirrors the pattern of parallel evolution of sexually selected traits. Initially, I will use next-generation sequencing to evaluate the total number of opsin genes, their distribution through the genome and their conservation across populations. I will then study variation in opsin sequence and expression associated with the evolution of colourful and sexually dimorphic guppy populations. Finally, I will study divergence in the visual system, beyond opsins, using comparative transcriptomics of the retina and the brain’s optic lobes. The results of this work will provide a cohesive, integrative and multi-faceted understanding of the role of opsin variation in this model system of evolution by sexual selection, and will determine the role of opsins and the visual system in driving female mate preferences and male colour evolution. This project will help us understand the genetic underpinnings of key adaptive traits, linking genes to the phenotype and opening up new research agendas.

Mots clés : opsins, visual system evolution, sexual selection, mate choice, colour evolution, guppy

Participants :
- University of London (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 195454.8 €
Projet EpiEcoMod (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2018)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The spillover of wildlife diseases into humans is increasing, and represents one of the biggest global health challenges we are facing today. Many zoonoses are transmitted by vectors (i.e. mosquitos) and had a large number of vertebrates as reservoirs. Thus, to reduce its impact on humans, it is essential to understand the factors that promote or inhibite spillover into human populations. Thus, it is necessary to consider the epidemiology of the pathogens both in vertebrate and vector communities. Technically, this requires an integration of community and disease ecology into a single mathematical framework, which explicitly considers vectors and hosts as distinct species, with different potential for pathogen amplification and contact rates. While mechanistic models exploring vector population dynamics have a long history, multihost-multivector model have not adequately integrated heterogeneity in host-vector interactions, despite their obvious importance. Here, I will study the role of vector species with distinct behaviour and ecological requirements in shaping the complex pathogen transmission dynamics, and ultimately determining the spillover, persistance or extinction of pathogens. My objectives are at the interface of theoretical and empirical research: 1) I use a rich data set to characterize the web of interactions between vectors and hosts, 2) I extend existing theory to explicitly consider vectors as distinct species and 3) I then study the role that behavioural heterogeneity has in shaping the larder web, and ultimately determining the risk of spilling over vs. disease extinction. Because of there is an urgent need to combine theory with data, I will also create an open source webpage where all the details of my work will be regularly updated in order to set practical guidelines supporting integration of mathematical modelling, fieldwork and laboratory work into OneHealth studies.

Mots clés : mathematical modelling, basic reproduction number, food web networks, vector borne zoonotic diseases, feeding preferences, multi host, multi vector pathogens

Participants :
- University of Amsterdam (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 187572.48 €
Projet cQMM (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2018)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The spin degree of freedom is a natural candidate to carry quantum information. Because of a generally weak coupling to its environment, it benefits from long lifetimes even in solid-state devices. The counterpart of this natural isolation is the challenge to engineer efficient control and readout of these spin states. Even more challenging is the coupling between distant spins, which is fundamental requirement to perform quantum computations. Among the various types of existing spin systems, molecular spins have shown remarkable properties. They are stable, they can be produced in large numbers of absolutely identical molecules and their properties are tuned and defined via chemical synthesis. The host group is recognized as an international leader in the field of molecular spins and has recently demonstrated elementary quantum information processing with such spins. Besides, it is known that in a solid state context, the dominant source of decay for molecular spins comes from the coupling to their mechanical environment via spin-phonon coupling. These phonons are often seen as a nuisance, but they actually constitute an interesting degree of freedom that has recently been intensely investigated in the field of circuit quantum electromechanics. The ER has acquired experience in this field during his 3.5 years of postdoc in the group of Konrad Lehnert (USA), a pioneering group in this field. We propose to take advantage of the natural spin-phonon coupling in molecular magnets, maximize it, and use it as a resource to control and readout molecular spins on fast time scales. The architecture consists of a molecular spin deposited on a mechanical oscillator in the quantum regime, which is controlled using the powerful techniques available in circuit quantum electromechanics. Such an interface could enable the coupling of distant molecular spins, but also the coupling to other degree of freedom such as optical photons, superconducting qubits or other spin systems.

Mots clés : single molecular spins, quantum electromechanics, nanomechanical resonators, superconducting microwave circuits

Participants :
- Centre national de la recherche scientifique (France) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 157184.72 €
Projet AllSteel-SRetrofit (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : SIGNED

The state-of-the-art review in seismic retrofit of existing reinforced-concrete (RC) buildings indicates that a technology that is non-disruptive and easy to implement, achieves simultaneous control of drifts and accelerations, and overcomes major issues related to low concrete strength, poor reinforcement details, and vulnerable RC columns, has never been described in the literature or in seismic design codes (e.g. Eurocode 8). The ambitious main objective against the background of the state-of-the-art of the project is to develop such a retrofit technology. In particular, the project will develop a non-disruptive retrofit scheme using an external, modular, steel frame as a facade close and in parallel connected to frames of the existing RC building. The external steel frame will have chevron braces to support energy dissipation devices, and, connectors to achieve horizontal coupling with the existing RC building. Strategically, the energy dissipation devices will be visco-plastic dampers, i.e. novel devices that will offer visco-elastic damping output under low-to-moderate earthquake intensities and friction damping output with a predefined limit on their peak force under high seismic intensities. The project will develop sophisticated yet practical structural details and a simplified seismic design procedure for the external steel frame. All these will be achieved through a carefully planned integrated experimental and numerical research program involving constitutive modelling, nonlinear finite element analysis, and shaking table tests. The proposed retrofit scheme constitutes a solid contribution to earthquake engineering that is expected to raise major international scientific and industrial interest.

Mots clés : seismic, concrete, retrofit, steel frame

Participants :
- University of Patras (Grèce) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 165085.44 €
Projet BITS (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2019)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The study of intelligent vehicles (IVs) is an area developing very fast and has the potential to transform road transportation and personal mobility in the years to come. In order to evaluate and minimize risks in the dynamic environment of IVs, it is necessary to have an accurate representation of the system and the uncertainty; the system describing IVs will never be a perfect representation of the true physical process and relying on its accuracy may lead to unreliable estimations and predictions and hence lead to wrong decisions. We will take into account this discrepancy of the mathematical representation and the physical system and utilize a fully Bayesian approach to develop a novel Bayesian learning methodology enabling efficient decision-making such avoiding collisions, as well as robust fault diagnosis. By first analyzing and understanding the uncertainty of an individual IV, the aim is to move to the collective behavior of IVs. This methodology will be validated on a physical test-bed at the University of Cyprus. The proposed project is highly interdisciplinary and combines methods from Engineering (expertise of the supervisor) and Statistics (extensive experience of the ER whose research background blends with parallel developments in Computer Science such as Machine Learning). This fellowship will contribute to the boost and advancement of the ER's career and ensure a two-way transfer of knowledge by (1) enriching the ER’s research skills through a career development plan and (2) the ER will transfer to the host her expertise. The potential impact of the proposed Bayesian uncertainty quantification of IVs can be high and important for the society as a whole, as we are making a step to the right direction to make IVs part of our everyday lives. The project has been designed around a coherent plan with experiments that will examine specific research directions but will also provide valuable insights and draw conclusions on Bayesian learning for IVs.

Mots clés : bayesian learning, gaussian processes, intelligent vehicles, connected and autonomous vehicles, statistical emulator, fault diagnosis, uncertainty quantification

Participants :
- University of Cyprus (Chypre) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 157941.12 €
Projet TAXT (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2017)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The subject of this application is the publication of an extraordinary collection of 824 Sasanian clay bullae bearing almost 2,000 seal impressions and inscriptions. The collection was recovered by Dr Yousef Moradi, the Experienced Researcher of this application, at the World Heritage site of Taxt-e Solaymān (Western Azerbaijan Province of Iran), the religious complex of Ādur Gušnasp, or ‘Fire of the Warriors’, in 2002–2008 during seven seasons of excavations conducted under the auspices of the Iranian Cultural Heritage Organization (ICHO). While most other Sasanian seals and sealings currently known are unprovenanced, the significance of this collection lies in the fact that it was recovered in a controlled archaeological excavation, with a specific provenance of the bullae. TAXT will produce the publication, both online and in print, of these bullae, and detailed studies of the seal impressions, including images and inscriptions, on the obverse. It will also provide a study of the impressions on the back-sides, or reverses, of the bullae. The reverses have small holes for the cord, and display cord marks and accidental traces of thumb and fingerprints of the persons handling the bullae when impressing the seals into the soft clay and when attaching the bullae to the objects which they were sealing. Moreover, there are imprints of the objects to which the bullae were attached, indicating that the objects were made of leather, grained parchment, and other materials. Coming from one of the three most sacred Zoroastrian fire temples of the Sasanian Empire (224–651 CE), TAXT will reveal unprecedented insights into the economic role of this Zoroastrian fire temple and its priesthood, generating findings that will be of interest to scholars from a variety of disciplines, including linguistics, history, religious studies, art history, and archaeology.

Mots clés : iranian archaology, sasanian studies, sasanian seals and sealings, middle persian studies, economy of zoroastrian fire temples

Participants :
- University of London (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 183454.8 €
Projet OpeRaNew (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2019)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : SIGNED

The substantial bibliography devoted to the work of Frances Burney (1757-1840) has confirmed her stature as an author, but it has left the dramatic works that she wrote during her years at the Court of George III almost untouched. The long-delayed publication of these plays has prevented critics from addressing them. For the few scholars who have dealt with them, these texts remain devoid of dramatic qualities. I posit that this quartet of tragedies prompts our critical thinking in terms of such present-day practices and policies as gender relations, body politics, agency: the plays raise many provocative questions, and our current complex juncture seems an especially apt moment to grant them a long-overdue audience as well as a stage. Burney’s speaking bodies—particularly the female ones—unmask and debunk the fraught relationship of the individual with social and state apparatuses, social forces and techniques of disciplining, whose coercions become dangerously naturalised. OpeRaNew aims to restore to Burney’s small dramatic corpus the cultural depth that has been lost over time. By using digital methods alongside literary analysis, the project constructs an expanding multimedia ecology for Burney’s plays—a capacious mediascape that aspires to reproduce, through contemporary tools and channels of communication, the Romantic theatre experience. The action’s core agenda—whose dynamic conversations are evoked by the verb ‘to open’ in the project title—advocates the engagement with an interested public beyond scholarly communities. The project not only sheds light on the overlooked dramatic works of a highly versatile Romantic woman author, but it shows the perspicacity and research potential of positioning—precisely at a time of enormous paradigmatic shifts in research communication and dissemination—some long-neglected playtexts, relegated to critical obscurity for over two centuries, within an expansive mediascape capable of placing them, finally, in the limelight.

Mots clés : romanticism eighteenth century frances burney theatre digital humanities historical drama performance gender adaptation creativity communication social media engagement accessibility audience

Participants :
- University of Edinburgh (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 212933.76 €