Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-actions-marie-curie-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet CHyAMera (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2022)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Europe’s transition to a decarbonised energy system, as outlined in the EU Green Deal, will radically transform how the EU generates, distributes, stores, and consumes energy. It will require virtually carbon-free power generation, increased energy efficiency, and the deep decarbonisation of transport, buildings, and industry. Europe is further boosting its green hydrogen ambitions to secure energy independence following the global geopolitical tensions and market instability. The current need to decarbonise our economy makes the search of new methods crucial to use chemicals, such as ammonia, that can be produced and employed as carbon-free (COx) hydrogen carrier. Dr. Milan Vukšić (applicant) will design and additively manufacture a modular, monolithic, multiscale ceramic catalytic reactor for magnetically heated COx-free hydrogen production with the fully electrified decomposition of ammonia. The project will be carried out at the Institute Jozef Stefan and the National Institute of Chemistry, Slovenia, under the supervision of Dr. Aljaž Iveković, Prof. Andraž Kocjan, and Prof. Blaž Likozar as consequence of a high level of interdisciplinary work. In contrast to the established stereolithography process, where ceramic filler particles are bound by a polymeric binder, the proposed project aims to form polymer-derived ceramic (PDC) structures by photopolymerisation of pre-ceramic polymers (PCPs) followed an additional heat treatment (pyrolysis) in collaboration with the TU Wien, supervised by Prof. Thomas Konegger. The main research focus will be on the additive manufacturing of ceramic catalytic reactor components with magnetic functionality induced by the in-situ formation of magnetic nanoparticles. The final goal of the project is to demonstrate the viability and advantages of the proposed approach for technical innovations and improvements in end systems that can use ammonia fuel.


Participants :
- Université technique de Vienne (Autriche) — Partner, associated partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
- Lithoz gmbh (Autriche) — Partner, associated partner, Organismes privés (hors enseignement), subvention : 0.0 €
- Institut de Chimie (Slovénie) — Partner, associated partner, Recherche, subvention : 0.0 €
- Institut Jožef Stefan (Slovénie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 155559.36 €
Projet MUGE (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2022)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Climate and socio-cultural changes are major ongoing concerns in our modern societies, their impacts on past populations are also central to understand the evolution of the human species, its resilience, and its capacity to adapt to new environments. 8200 years ago, the Mesolithic populations (hunter-gatherers) from Portugal faced a climatic event that profoundly changed their environment in a similar way to what is expected to happen in the next decades. In addition to these challenges, they were also confronted with the arrival of migrating Neolithic populations introducing farming, plant and animal domestication, and sedentism, gradually leading to the disappearance of the hunter-gatherer nomadic way of life. MUGE project aims to unveil the life story of the last hunter-gatherers from the Tagus valley (Muge village) in Portugal and to understand whether the environmental, and socio-cultural changes during the Late Mesolithic (ca. 8200-7100 cal B.P.) impacted the composition and health of these past populations. Discovered 150 years ago and representing the largest European anthropological collection for the Mesolithic (more than 250 individuals), humans from Muge are still poorly studied from a biological perspective because of the state of preservation of the skeletons. Cutting-edge imaging techniques will allow us to correct the taphonomic alterations and go into great detail in the analysis of skeletal remains, providing crucial information about the biological profile of the individuals (age-at-death, sex, etc.), the structure of the populations, and their health status. With more than 1000 years of occupation, Muge furnishes an ideal skeletal sample for exploring changes in health status through time and between sexes, adults, and non-adults but also between sites and understand the impact of each change on these populations. This project is the first to combine both palaeodemographic, palaeopathological, and palaeoimaging approaches to the Muge populations.

Mots clés : biological anthropology virtual anthropology mesolithic palaeopathology

Participants :
- Université de Coimbra (Portugal) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 156778.56 €
Projet HRC (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2024)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Human-robot collaboration (HRC) is an important and established subject of study and research in the field of robotics (as part of Industry 4.0) which currently pervades many aspects of human endeavour. Advances in HRC have diversified the application of robots from the traditional production line to intelligent manufacturing, homecare, and healthcare. In such applications, human-robot collisions are bound to occur, with adverse consequences. To overcome the challenge of collision and improve safety in HRC in a shared workspace, several techniques (which employ vision, acoustics or haptics technology) have been developed. The techniques include external positioning of cameras in the workspace, use of robot skin embedded with sensors, and image-based feedback control. These three methods typically apply vision-based technology.  This proposal aims to employ a novel and validated convergent stereo camera model (that does not require image rectification) in robots with a view to improving safety in HRC. The model is characterized by less computational complexity and short execution time relative to existing reconstruction models in stereovision literature. Subsequently, the project will introduce an improvement for robot skin to also have visual information from high-resolution cameras by extending the geometric analysis and mathematical modeling of non-rectification stereo imaging to multicamera imaging in the light of safety improvement in HRC using robot skin. This will complement the tactile sensation capabilities of robot skin with enhanced visual features that incorporate elements of the validated stereo camera model. Finally, a double-view image-based visual servoing control strategy will be developed for the improvement of safety in HRC using the validated model. While contributing to robotics literature and presenting new approaches to collision avoidance in HRC, this project will ultimately deepen the researcher’s understanding of robotic vision and control.

Mots clés : human robot collaboration, robot skin, multicamera model, and control strategy

Participants :
- Université technique d'Ostrava (Rép. Tchèque) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 207758.16 €
Projet PANDORA (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2023)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

All over the world, pollution is one of the ultimate environmental concerns. Europe’s seas and coastal zones are heavily impacted by human activities, resulting in significant pollution since the beginning of the industrial age and particularly since 1900. In Europe, this major concern is linked to cycles of development and use of new elements and compounds, followed by identification of pollution levels and risks, eventually leading to the implementation of restrictions on their use, often through national, European and international legal instruments. Yet there are critical knowledge gaps that can interfere with the justification and implementation of such policies. One is the provision of stratigraphic data on the long-term (historical) impacts of such regulations on widespread environmental concentrations of target pollutants. The PANDORA project will fill this void by providing an innovative approach, combining high-resolution data on heavy metal and microplastic concentrations, over time, determining possible sources of contamination, and quantifying their effects on benthic foraminifera growth patterns and calcification. The scope of this project is a shelf-to-slope transect of time-resolved stratigraphic archives recovered in the northern margin of the Alboran Sea (western Mediterranean).

Mots clés : anthropocene marine pollution sediment cores heavy metals microplastics foraminifera southeast iberian peninsula alboran sea

Participants :
- Université de l'Algarve (Portugal) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 156778.56 €
- Université de Grenade (Espagne) — Partner, associated partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
Projet IOSC (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2022)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Caries disease is a global health and economy burden experienced by 2 billion of adults and 500 millions of children around the world. Visual exam and dental radiography are the standard methods for diagnosing and monitoring dental caries and present shortcomings: subtle lesions of caries cannot be visual or radiographically detected and are highly sensitive to the examiner; besides it, X-rays involve ionizing radiation which limits monitoring at small intervals and has structures superimposition. Recently, TRIOS 4 (3Shape, Copenhagen, Denmark) intraoral scanning (IOS) brings caries aid monitoring tool based on fluorescence and infrared technologies. Despite in vitro studies suggesting its applicability, there is no clinical evidence of its accuracy (true positives and negatives). In this context, the goal of this project is to clinically assess the accuracy of this novel approach for detecting and monitoring dental caries. After ethics approval, I will examine patient’s teeth under dental caries treatment in Faculty of Dental Surgery of University of Malta using visual exam and dental radiography, then I will scan teeth with TRIOS 4 IOS using fluorescence and infrared technologies. Using these clinical digital data, I will output: 1) the accuracy of TRIOS4 compared with standard methods; 2) if the result changes between professionals - in a multicentre approach. If firmly established, it will be a way to change caries monitoring in a safe and non-invasive approach; if not, it will provide scientific evidence for improvement, future studies and development of new tools. The results will be interesting for scientist, dentists, industry and citizens, as caries is a common disease with high global prevalence. For reaching such audience, communication, dissemination and exploitation is planned using open access practices through data repository, green and gold routes, as well as in mass media.

Mots clés : dental caries digital dentistry intraoral scanning diagnostic imaging optical imaging

Participants :
- Université de Malte (Malte) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 161411.52 €
- Université complutense de Madrid (Espagne) — Partner, associated partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
Projet TEARF (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2024)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

The Effect of Alpha emitters and Radiofrequency Fields on cancer cells in culture.  Alpha emitter radiation therapy involves the use of radionuclides that decay, emitting an alpha particle that kills the cancer cells. Radiopharmaceuticals that emit low levels of alpha particle radiation are used to treat different cancers. Compared to other treatment options such as external beam radiation and chemotherapy, alpha emitter radiation therapy results in better treatment outcome. There are however side effects such as pancytopenia, which may be attributed to the radiation dose administered to the patient. Combination therapy may lead to the use of lower doses of alpha emitters, achieving the desired treatment outcome with reduced side effects. An effective treatment regimen is one that kills the cancer cells with minimal to no normal tissue toxicity. There is, therefore, a need to explore other methods as modulators or modifying agents of the alpha emitter radiation therapy. Radiofrequency fields (RF) have been evaluated for their role as modulators of external beam radiation hence, they are good candidate to assess as modulators of alpha emitter radiation therapy. In the proposed work RF will be evaluated as potential modifying agents for alpha emitter radiation therapy using Ra-223. This project seeks to explore multimodality therapeutic approaches, for better treatment outcomes.

Mots clés : radionuclide therapy, radiofrequency fields, 

Participants :
- Hôpital de l'Université d'Oslo (Norvège) — Partner, associated partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
- Université de Vilnius (Lituanie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 196976.16 €
Projet NEURO-BURN (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2024)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

The goal of the research project is to investigate the neuromodulatory effects of controlled breathing (CB) interventions on enhancing cognition (i.e., executive functions (EF)) and mental well-being in individuals suffering from burnout disorder. Burnout disorder, signified by debilitating psychological, cognitive, and physiological symptoms, is a growing concern in contemporary society. With an estimated average prevalence of around 20% in the general population and significantly higher rates in specific professional groups (e.g., up to 80% in healthcare workers), burnout disorder necessitates innovative intervention and treatment approaches. The current multidisciplinary study intersects cognitive neuroscience, psychology, biomedical engineering, and health sciences to explore how CB can modulate brain oscillations and improve cognitive and mental health outcomes in burnout disorder. The project will employ a randomised controlled trial (RCT) to examine CB’s impact on three key layers: (1) brain oscillations (i.e., electroencephalography (EEG) measurements), (2) cognition (i.e., standardised EF tasks), and (3) mental well-being (i.e., standardised scales). By utilising EEG, standardised EF tasks, and standardised mental well-being symptom scales, the study will assess pre- and post-intervention changes in neural activity, cognitive performance, and mental well-being. The research findings will be grounded in a theoretical framework – the Free Energy Principle – allowing the formulation of further testable and falsifiable hypotheses and leading towards a structured methodology for investigating the specific mechanisms through which CB influences neurophysiological, cognitive, and psychological processes in burnout, and ensuring that the findings are robust and reproducible. The project outcomes are expected to advance the scientific understanding of non-invasive neuromodulation via CB, offering accessible practical solutions for mental health improvement.

Mots clés : burnout disorder, neuromodulation, controlled breathing, brain oscillations, executive functions, mental well being

Participants :
- Université de Gand (Belgique) — Partner, associated partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
- Université de Vilnius (Lituanie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 196976.16 €
Projet Super-HIPPO (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2022)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Main challenge of fighting with the HIV is to eliminate the latent viral reservoir from the body. This reservoir is resistant to antiretroviral drug therapy and can cause viral rebound if the treatment is stopped. The removal of the reservoir enables HIV eradication, is urgently desired in HIV-AIDS research. For this purpose, a strategy called “kick and kill” was proposed, based on the hypothesis that activation of latent HIV (“kick”) leads to cell death (“kill”) by physical damage and/or immune activation. However, in clinical tests “kill” process was found to be not enough to reach HIV eradication.  To eradicate HIV from the body, my work has recently suggested a new strategy called “lock-in and apoptosis” instead of “kick and kill”. In development of this strategy, non-natural derivative of inositol hexaphosphate (IP6) named as L-HIPPO was designed based on the fact that the MA domain of Pr55gag which mediates membrane binding through its interaction with inositol phospholipid PIP2 in the host membrane. L-HIPPO was administrated to HIV infected HeLa cells as complex with a carrier α-CDE and suppressed membrane localization of HIV-1 Gag protein and induced strong apoptosis of the host cell containing the latent viruses. In contrast, α-CDE-L-HIPPO induced less apoptosis on T cell line. Besides, the complex of α-CDE-L-HIPPO is inapplicable for oral use. Toward this end, new L-HIPPO derivative with alternative carrier is required.  An ultimate goal of this work is to develop new L-HIPPO derivative (Super-HIPPO) with more potent and efficient activities. My objectives to reach this goal are (1) to synthesize new L-HIPPO derivatives and alternative carriers, (2) to evaluate their activities, (3) to repeat design, synthesis and biological evaluation, if the activities are not enough, (4) to confirm the binding mode of MA-compound, and (5) to achieve personal development and career advancement by performing this study.

Mots clés : inositol hexaphosphate, nanoparticles, hiv 1, matrix protein, and x ray crystallography

Participants :
- Izmir Kâtip Çelebi University (Turquie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 148478.4 €
Projet EEGLS (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2023)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Economic Sciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Energy consumption, environment, and economic growth (target variables), exist simultaneously and are inseparable. This means energy access is essential to spurring economic growth and reducing poverty; however, it adversely affects the environment. Besides, there is a negative relationship between environmental degradation and economic growth. Thus, this tension between improving energy access for economic growth and mitigating environmental externality from growth introduced a three-way link model) and their interaction impact on sustainable development is the recent research agenda. However, previous findings examined either one or two-way links (supply side, demand side, or environmental side theories) to explore the relationship between the variables. Most findings overlooked the interaction impact on sustainable development and did not measured the variables in broad or specific indicators, resulting in a gap in the literature (knowledge). Furthermore, the forward and feedback relationships between economic activities and the environment have not been examined. Therefore, this study will investigate target variables linkage and their interaction impacts on the sustainable development of sub-Saharan African countries from 2001 to 2023. The study will employ multi-country secondary panel data analysis collected from international institutions’ databases. It will analyze the descriptive statistics and basic panel data econometric tests and adopt the abovementioned theories, capital approach, and integrated sustainable development goals (iSDG) framework and employ robust methodology like the simultaneous equation model. It will provide insights into the complex relationship between target variables, inform policymakers on sustainable development strategies, and serve as a basis for further studies. The project will also encourage investment in renewable energy and conservation. The fellowship will enhance research skills, visibility, networking, and VU capacity.

Mots clés : energy consumption, environmental quality, economic growth, sustainability, sub saharan africa

Participants :
- Université de Vilnius (Lituanie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 158597.76 €
Projet treelineQWA (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2022)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Global warming has modified the distribution of some forests growing at their altitudinal limit (treelines): some have been advancing (leading to loss of alpine biodiversity and changes in surface reflectance of mountain and polar areas), others remained stable leaving a lag between the position of uppermost tree stands and the treeline isotherm (TI, common seasonal mean temperature indicative for potential treeline position). Despite these striking worldwide patterns, there is a lack of systematic observation to understand the drivers of differential treeline response to global warming. The extent of the treeline lag behind warming may be associated with seedlings survival. However, as temperature is considered the main factor responsible for treeline, the role of seedling drought sensitivity as driver of differential treeline response to global warming is poorly understood. Certain xylem anatomical traits (XA) such as conduits wall thickness-area ratio, conduits area and layers, pits, and parenchyma area may confer drought adaptations, ultimately affecting survival and growth under increasing warming conditions. The proposed research will help understand the drivers of differential treeline response to global warming. I will analyse the effect of XA on the distance of the uppermost tree stands to TI in representative European treeline tree species. We will determine the treelines’ lag across several regions. I will quantify XA and their plasticity, and correlate them with treeline position. My contribution to achieve the project objectives relies on quantitative wood anatomy experience for studying drought adaptations in tree species, and examining patterns between drought resistance and anatomical variation. This project brings me experience abroad to get a permanent position at a high-quality research institution, with a high-life quality, focusing on independent research on wood anatomical influence on plant function under stressful environments.

Mots clés : drought sensitivity, gymnosperms, quantitative wood anatomy, seedlings, treeline dynamics, treeline isotherm

Participants :
- Université Charles de Prague (Rép. Tchèque) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 150438.72 €