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

Intestinal fungi are an important component of the microbiome and their homeostasis/dysbiosis constantly shapes the immune responses. The human commensal fungus Candida albicans colonizes the gut of 40-80% of individuals. However, life-threatening infections caused by this fungus are relatively rare since the unwinding of its pathogenic potential is kept in check by the immune system. In line with this, immunodeficient patients suffer often from Candidiasis, which is typically difficult to treat. Candida albicans induce strong Th17 response which is the main protective mechanism against pathogenic fungi. Candida-induced Th17 cells can protect the host not only against other fungal but also against extracellular pathogens. Besides the positive effects of Th17 in defence against pathogens, recent studies connect fungi-elicited Th17 response with local and gut-distal pathologies such as asthma, multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s disease, or rheumatoid arthritis. Despite that the role of Th17 is relatively well studied, the early events at the initiation of innate and adaptive immune responses against intestinal fungi are much less known. Various mutations in the adaptive immune system are clearly associated with impaired antifungal immunity. The proposed project will fill this knowledge gap by systematic studies of antigen-presenting cells involved in initiating Th17 response upon Candida colonization. We propose to use single-cell RNA sequencing techniques to determine Candida responsive populations followed by deletion of MHCII on selected APCs populations to prove that the effect is mediated via antigen presentation. We will further study the bidirectional interaction between Candida and APCs in these mice. This study will lead to the understanding of events at the beginning of antifungal response via the identification of cell type(s) responsible for Th17 induction as well as the regulation of fungal homeostasis and control of Candida virulence.

Mots clés : anti fungal immunity, antigen presenting cells, th17 cells, candida albicans, candida colonization, single cell rna seq

Participants :
- Université Charles de Prague (Rép. Tchèque) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 166278.72 €
Projet TM-LDH (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2022)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Two dimensional (2D) materials and their composites are now in trends due high electrocatalytic activity and ion storage capacity. The development of cost-effective and simple electrocatalyst for energy applications are still challenging. The best substitute to typical Transition metal oxides/hydroxides/chalcogenides (TMOs/TMHs/TMC) for electrocatalysis is Transition metal based Layer Double Hydroxide (TM-LDH). Layer Double Hydroxide materials have various benefits, including low cost, chemical composition variety, easily manipulated characteristics, a wide range of preparation variables, unique anion exchange and intercalation properties, chemical stability, and colloidal and thermal behaviour. But the fewer active sites and poor electronic conductivity of Layer Double Hydroxide restricts their applications. Here, the proposed work has the purpose to contribute to the expansion of electrocatalysts that are effective in a variety of energy applications. The main focus is to develop hierarchical structure of Layer Double Hydroxide, composition of Layer Double Hydroxide/Transition metal chalcogenides and Layer Double Hydroxide/carbon based materials adopting various methods such as hydrothermal/solvothermal, liquid phase exfoliation and electrodeposition. The technique appears to eliminate hurdles related to electrical/ionic conductivity and surface morphology, resulting in a bifunctional/trifunctional electrocatalyst that is effective for wearable supercapacitor and overall water splitting.

Mots clés : layered double hydroxide, electrocatalyst, supercapacitor

Participants :
- Institut de technologie chimique de Prague (Rép. Tchèque) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 166278.72 €
Projet 2DTMCH2 (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2022)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The rapid progress in intermittent solar, wind technologies has created an urgent need to develop parallel technologies of storing energy in forms that are suitable for on-site applications as well as long distance transmission. The present method of storing the surplus energy in batteries is not a viable solution in the long run, owing to the limited reserves and toxicity of battery materials. In such a scenario, storing the obtained energy in the form of H2 fuel is a fairly attractive strategy. Alkaline water electrolyzer (AWE) have been a key technology for large-scale hydrogen production and are capable of generating energy in MW range. Alkaline water electrolyzer (AWE) still requires technological make-over to reach the desired efficiency of about 90 % from the current 70 %. On the other hand, counterpart technology of proton exchange membrane (PEM) water electrolyzer is highly efficient, but its investment cost and low lifetime limits commercialization. The investment cost of AWE today is around 1000-1200 $/kW, and PEM is 1700-2500 $/kW. In addition, the lifetime of AWE is higher and the annual maintenance costs are lower compared to PEM. Although AWE has an economic advantage over PEM, integrating AWE with an intermittent energy source of solar and wind power requires a major advancement in the design to be used in dynamic operating conditions. The key objective of this research is to develop a multipurpose low-cost water electrolyzer for H2 production by electrolysis of alkaline-water with special focus on seawater (alkaline) water to store intermittent energy sources (solar and wind) in form of clean fuel. Unfortunately, there are no commercial electrolyzer that run on seawater, owing to the associated research and technical challenges of high activity, OER selectivity, stability, and low cost. The present project aims to develop AWE stacks for H2 production employing efficient, cost-effective two-dimensional transition metal compounds (2D-TMC).

Mots clés : electrolysis, hybrid 2d systems, transition metal, layered compounds

Participants :
- Institut de technologie chimique de Prague (Rép. Tchèque) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 166278.72 €
Projet SURVEILWEL (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2022)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Automated data collection and algorithmic decision-making tools are increasingly integrated in social welfare policy, where they are primarily used to determine which citizens are deemed eligible for social support, which could be excluded, and which might be accused of fraud. Despite being overtly presented as a benign technical advancement, such welfare surveillance tools play a role in reshaping the structure of the social safety net. They can support the work processes of welfare institutions with improved efficiency, but can also reduce the human discretion of practitioners, integrate hidden biases into evaluation procedures, or cast a net of perpetual suspicion on citizens claiming a right to social assistance in their time of need. The SURVEILWEL project draws on a qualitative, multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork within welfare institutions in Slovenia, where the automation of welfare eligibility assessments and fraud detection is both prevalent and technologically advanced, to shed a light on these previously unexplored technologies and practices. This project aims to map the work processes, institutions, and data streams involved in welfare eligibility tests and investigations of suspected fraud; to critically examine the unintended and differentiated consequences arising with the introduction of digital and automated welfare surveillance tools; and to evaluate how can digital welfare surveillance tools be reformed to produce better social and material welfare interventions. By producing tangible, applied knowledge on digital welfare surveillance, this project seeks to inform Slovenian and European welfare practitioners, policymakers and citizens on the merits and pitfalls of digital welfare surveillance, as they grapple with questions on the design, structure, inclusiveness and accountability of the future welfare state.

Mots clés : surveillance, digitalisation, datafication, welfare, algorithmic governance, social security

Participants :
- Institute of Criminology (Slovénie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Autres, subvention : 171399.36 €
Projet CORE (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2022)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : CLOSED

CORE (Colonial Recipes, Then and Now) investigates how domestic colonial food cultures in the Portuguese empire (1450-1600) reflect the mobility, agency, labour, and knowledge of women and enslaved cooks; and how colonial recipes can create space for more nuanced conversations around colonial heritage. The project takes a ‘global history’ approach to the empire, examining the extent to which the mobility of people, foods, labour, and knowledge between key port cities shaped colonial food cultures. By focusing on domestic spaces, it places women and enslaved cooks, who did the labour of food preparation, centre stage. In this way, the project revalorises domestic spaces as sites of global exchange, which have been largely excluded from studies of global history, as well as insisting on the importance of gender to understand the complexities of the relations between mobility, food, and empire. By spotlighting colonial recipes, CORE will spark new scholarly conversations about the insights these texts offer into: ‘subaltern’ mobility, creativity, and adaptability; the intersecting production of gender, race, and class; and colonial households as the centre of social provisioning and wider infrastructures of empire, examining how new colonial cuisines intersect with colonial regimes of trade, agricultural production, and domestic slavery. It makes three historiographical interventions, namely it: (1) responds to calls to write a global history of the early modern Portuguese empire; (2) brings the ‘new imperial history’ further into dialogue with a history of the Portuguese empire by showing how food illuminates colonial politics, especially negotiations around gender, race, and class; and (3) contributes to public debate around the production of heritage about the colonial past, using colonial recipes to interrogate the multiple valences and contradictions of the empire, and its legacies in the present.

Mots clés : food history, subaltern, history from below, colonial heritage

Participants :
- Université de Lisbonne (Portugal) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 156778.56 €
Projet BiPhyNEMA (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2022)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Pine Wilt Disease (PWD) caused by the nematode Bursaphelenchus xylophilus (Pine Wood Nematode, PWN) is one most devastating forest diseases worldwide. This pathology was detected in Europe in 1999 and future climatic scenarios point PWD will spread in the next decades threatening more than 60% of native range of Pinus sylvestris and P. pinaster. In parallel, adaptation of woodlands to Climate Change and its effect in tree defense against this pathology remain unclear. BiPhyNEMA will investigate how pines will react to those stress sources to better understand ecophysiological and pathogenic procedures that will drive their response in the middle term. The project has four research objectives: a) to evaluate physiological response of two P. pinaster genotypes (susceptible and resistant) infected by PWN under two different environmental conditions according to IPCC scenarios; b) to characterize functional response of infected seedlings and PWNs by dual-transcriptomics approach in the aforementioned scenarios; c) to monitor populations of PWN-mutualistic bacteria during nematode infection, and d) to investigate virus-based control potential using phages against PWN-associated bacteria. BiPhyNEMA combines transcriptomics with tree ecophysiology from an integrative point of view (ecophysiolomics) to achieve a holistic description of disease development. In addition, the project integrates that approach with pathology and applied virology, resulting in an original and interdisciplinary research with high potential for innovative findings. BiPhyNEMA provides a detailed personal career development plan focused in reinforcing autonomous research profile of the fellow. Moreover, the project will transfer new knowledge between forest researchers, foresters, and society using the most suitable means in each case. BiPhyNEMA adheres to key strategic orientations of Horizon Europe Program, and addresses the need to develop eco-friendly methods for forest protection

Mots clés : bursaphelenchus xylophilus, pine wilt disease, climate change, forest resilience, phage therapy, ecophysiolomics, plant pathogen transcriptomics

Participants :
- Université catholique portugaise (Portugal) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 156778.56 €
Projet PollSTEAM (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2023)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : TERMINATED

The impact of technological advance on the environment has become an essential topic in academic research and contemporary discourse. The maritime transport industry has attracted plenty of attention, yet, the link between technological innovation in shipping and the rise of environmental and health-related issues among its workers is still largely unexplored in historical terms. PollSTEAM proposes an innovative approach to maritime studies by adopting an environmental perspective on the transition from sail to steam in shipping since the mid-19th century. Rethinking technological change in terms of environment and labour will reframe and readdress a recent research object of maritime history from an original angle, sensitive to contemporary environmentalist and healthcare solicitations. PollSTEAM’s objective is to examine how the advent of steam shipping altered European maritime societies from an environmental perspective. Two specific research subjects will be targeted: waterfronts and seafarers in Genoa and Liverpool between 1830s and 1920. Firstly, I will analyse how the adoption of steam technology affected the natural and anthropic environment of port cities, especially on the changing relationship between port and city, where a constant detachment is observed. Port cities were materially transformed by the increasing presence of steamships, not only in terms of space but also of environmental impact. I will investigate how the city-port relationships were modified, especially the role of institutions, public opinion and urban society. Secondly, steamships are regarded as working environments. I intend to trace the emergence of environmentalist and health-related discourses among seafarers and to assess steam pollution’s health impact on them, which can be confronted with data on mortality and morbidity in the age of sail to reconceptualise with medical data the notion of steamships as deadly workplaces.

Mots clés : maritime history environmental history coal pollution steamships port cities transition from sail to steam maritime labour mediterranean sea medical history urban history

Participants :
- Université de Liverpool John-Moores (Royaume-Uni) — Partner, associated partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
- Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas (Grèce) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 169326.72 €
Projet MTSonNAS (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2022)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Traditional engineering models known as Activated Sludge Model (ASM) are commonly used for operation, design, and optimization of wastewater treatment plants. ASM predict microbial growth with simulation and calibration of model parameters which are bound to a range of experimental conditions. Recently, Microbial Transition State (MTS) approach was proposed which is a statistical-physics based theory of microbial growth linking thermodynamic balances and growth rates. A growth equation was derived from these first principles, which links a flux (the growth of microbes) to a force, i.e. the Gibbs free potential energy density in medium contained in randomly distributed substrate molecules. MTS has not been fully verified with experimental data on mixed microbial cultures such as sustained in wastewater treatment systems. As the theory is developed for describing standard microbial growth, conditions such as inhibition of growth by any pollutant compound has not been considered/applied in real systems. The aim of the research is to investigate growth kinetics of two different nitrifying bacteria individually (Ammonia and Nitrite oxidizers) with MTS modeling approach and identify nitirification growth kinetics. Inhibition of bacterial growth with different types of inhibitors will also be investigated in order to evaluate and verify application of MTS model for different guilds in mixed microbial cultures under different environmental conditions. The outcomes of the study will contribute to understanding and control of microbial growth processes in engineered and natural treatment systems. Identification of inhibition kinetics will be used for mitigation of pollution generated from industrial processes as well as theoretical development of MTS theory to be applied in more complex biological process applications. The project is an intersection of environmental engineering, molecular biology, and modeling disciplines which will contribute Green Deal Strategy of EU.

Mots clés : microbial growth, kinetics, energy based models, microbial transition state theory, activated sludge model

Participants :
- Université technique d'Istanbul (Turquie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 148478.4 €
Projet CharcoEnvHist (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2023)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Uncovering the details and impacts of different forest uses and their related socio-ecological systems is essential for understanding forest ecosystems. One of these uses is charcoal burning. It was a common type of forest use in Europe from prehistory until the 20th century. Nowadays it is recognized mainly as part of cultural heritage, although it still functions as a raw material source in the production of additional energy . Most studies about charcoal production focus on the history and vegetation impact before the 19th century in Western Europe and prioritize the male perspective of this forest use. The aim of this project is to examine the environmental history and vegetation of active and abandoned charcoal kiln sites, emphasising the role of women and children in this forest use and the traditional ecological knowledge of charcoal burners since the 19th century in Central and Eastern Europe. The project will apply ecological, ethnobiological and historical data collection methods in three work packages: WP1: Literature review, WP2: Field work, WP3: Archival Research. The project will provide novel data about non-timber forest uses and highlight the role of women and children and their active role in charcoal burning. Research into the interaction of so-far neglected groups with nature will support the preservation of the biocultural heritage of European forested landscapes and provide new insights for energy production and landscape management. To achieve these goals, I will use the facilities of the host institute (HI), the Institute of Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences and the Secondment place, the University of Turin. The expertise of my supervisor at the host institute, Dr. Péter Szabó, and mentor of the SP, Dr. Giacomo Bonan, in interdisciplinary research of forest history will provide me with an excellent background that will broaden my horizons and contribute to my further development in academia.

Mots clés : historical ecology, forest history, vegetation, biocultural heritage, industrial history, renewable energy, children, women, environmental humanities, ethnobiology, social ecological systems

Participants :
- Institute of Botany (Rép. Tchèque) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 150438.72 €
- Université de Turin (Italie) — Partner, associated partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
Projet MIMIC (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2022)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Heat generation and removal thereof is one of the main challenges for the realization of many future high performance electronics. The heat wall is one of the biggest obstacles to processing large amount of data using the conventional computing architectures. To address this formidable challenge, smart architectural approaches that consider co-design of electronics and thermal management, as well as emerging solutions beyond CMOS, are needed. A resistive switching memory cell ReRAM is a promising candidate for such a technology, which offers performance improvements in digital circuits without a need for aggressive device scaling when combined with transistors. Ultimately, the solution may come from monolithic integration of novel electronics and cooling within the same substrate. In-chip cooling has been recently demonstrated to be promising in GaN power electronics on silicon. However, the multi-step and complicated process flow adopted for fabricating the in-chip heat sink in the state-of-the-art could pose a big challenge for the wide adoption of this new, scientifically and technologically interesting concept. 3D laser lithography is a currently unrealized opportunity to fabricate in-chip microchannels for cooling with substantially simplified fabrication and without a need for cleanroom facilities. Complex 3D structures can be fabricated by this method through a two-step process that includes femtosecond laser irradiation followed by wet chemical etching. In view of the above mentioned, we target to develop memristive arrays integrated with laser-micro-machined in-chip cooling. This offers an immediate and rapid path to overcome the thermal challenges facing today’s computing architectures, and is of relevance to other technologies that suffer from heating during operation. We seek to exploit the highly efficient embedded cooling to pioneer agenda setting advances in addressing the well-known thermal limitations of future logic and memory technologies.

Mots clés : monolithically integrated cooling and electronics, laser sculpted in chip microfluidics, reram

Participants :
- Université Bilkent (Turquie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 132638.4 €