Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-actions-marie-curie-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet SealedGRID (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2017)
Action : Staff Exchanges
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The rapid evolution of ICT has revealed the potential for centrally monitoring, controlling, and optimising the power grid. In this context, a more intelligent, responsive, and efficient, system has been devised, known as the Smart Grid (SG). As explained in the EU Third Energy Package the SG will support a dynamic two-way information exchange between utility companies and their customers, contributing towards a smart and sustainable energy management in Europe and the establishment of a wiser energy consumption mentality. However, besides the benefits of such an endeavour, the power grid will be exposed to security threats inherited from the ICT sector, while privacy issues and new vulnerabilities, related to the specific characteristics of the SG infrastructure, will emerge. The problem is assessed as crucial, if we consider that a potential attack to the SG may lead to cascading failures, ranging from destruction of other interconnected critical infrastructures to loss of human lives. Thus, the development of a security platform tailored to the SG is required, that i) can efficiently manage the plethora of SG nodes, ii) deal with potential malicious hardware or software modifications due to the physical access of the customers to the SG nodes, and iii) operate over heterogeneous systems. Considering all the above, SealedGRID aims at bringing together experts from industry and academia from cross-sectorial research areas having complementary background with the long-term goal to design, analyse, and implement a scalable, highly trusted and interoperable SG security platform. The platform will combine, for the very first time, technologies like Blockchain, Distributed Hash Tables, Trusted Execution Environments, and OpenID Connect, while for its realization the SealedGRID consortium is committed to a fully-integrated and multi-disciplinary secondment programme combined with a set of networking, dissemination, and exploitation activities.

Mots clés : key management, decentralized authentication, single sing on trust management, web of trust, blockchain, attribute based access control, distributed hash tables, security interoperability

Participants :
- Universidad de Málaga (Espagne) — Partner, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 99000.0 €
- Consorzio Nazionale Interuniversitario per le Telecomunicazioni (Italie) — Partner, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 108000.0 €
- University of Piraeus (Grèce) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 252000.0 €
- Fogus innovations & services p.c. (Grèce) — Partner, beneficiary, Organismes privés (hors enseignement), subvention : 81000.0 €
- Neurosoft software productions sa (Grèce) — Partner, beneficiary, Organismes privés (hors enseignement), subvention : 270000.0 €
- Beia consult international srl (Roumanie) — Partner, beneficiary, Organismes privés (hors enseignement), subvention : 270000.0 €
Projet Hot-TEA (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2017)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The rapid growth of extra-solar planet (ESP) discovery and characterisation over the last two decades increases our hope to detect life signatures in other worlds in the near future. Given the variety of planetary atmospheres in our Solar System and the number of ESP observed so far, a vast diversity among ESP climate is expected. The study of ESP atmospheres is nowadays seen as the new frontier in Astrophysics, crucial for typifying planets in the habitable zone. Innovative and promising techniques, used so far to identify hot-Jupiter atmospheres, are envisaged to detect Earth-size planet atmospheres by exploiting high resolution spectrographs and large telescopes. To tackle this challenge, major efforts are devoted to 1) find closest ESP targets with the strongest atmospheric signature 2) develop 3D theoretical tools to predict realistic climates. In the perspective of detecting more and more close-in-orbit hot terrestrial planets, Hot-TEA proposes to address observational prospects to Venus-like planets, with the goal of studying how the planet’s atmosphere modifies the observables. With mass and radius similar to the Earth, but a completely different climate, Venus is the best analogue of those future targets. This proposal will ideally combine: my expertise on modeling Venus atmosphere, with the large know-how of the host institute in detection and characterisation of ESP systems, plus the vast expertise in modelling ESP atmospheres of the second host. To reach our objectives, a generic global circulation model adapted to Venus conditions will be used to: explore model sensitivity to unconstrained parameters, quantify the effect of those parameters on the observables, test extreme cases and propose a number of climate scenarios for the targets. The main outcome of Hot-TEA, key predicted observables, will open the way to interpret future observations during the next decade using a whole new generation of European instruments and missions.

Mots clés : planetary atmosphere, extra solar planets, global circulation models, high resolution spectrograph

Participants :
- Fciencias.id - associacao para a investigacao e desenvolvimento de ciencias (Portugal) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 148635.6 €
Projet IQubitNet (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2018)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The rapidly advancing field of quantum technologies promises to solve important problems in computation, communication and metrology. A long-sought goal is the realization of quantum networks to distribute entanglement to long distance nodes. Such a network could enable the implementation of distributed quantum computing, unconditionally secure communication, ultra-precise distributed clocks, and precision sensors such as ultra-long-baseline interferometers. While ground-breaking demonstrations have been reported using NV centers in diamond, scaling up the performance and range will require key advances in suppressing photon loss, extending decoherence, and multiplexing and packaging deployable quantum repeater nodes. In this project, we propose to investigate the promising spin and optical properties of Group-IV color centers in diamond coupled to nanocavity interfaces, and to scale these Cavity-QED systems to multiple quantum memories individually addressable on photonic integrated circuits (PICs). The multiplexed quantum repeater devices that we propose will combine highly efficient optical interfaces with logical qubit of extended coherence. Moreover, these repeater nodes can be efficiently connected over long distance through existing metropolitan-scale fiber networks by quantum frequency conversion to the telecom band. As a specific goal, we aim to demonstrate that such quantum repeaters will be able to beat the rate-loss scaling of repeaterless (memoryless) quantum links, enabling a new generation of multi-node quantum networking application.

Mots clés : diamond color centers, quantum networks

Participants :
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Etats-Unis) — Partner, organization partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
- Delft University of Technology (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 253052.16 €
Projet pERFEcTO (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2017)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The recent advancement in quantum technologies and control raises the fascinating possibility to employ them for developing a whole new generation of devices based on the laws of quantum mechanics. At the same time, such progress enables unprecedented studies on the foundation of quantum mechanics and the quantum nature of space-time. This is precisely the overreaching goal of this action, which we dub pERFEcTO, that will use the technological platform embodied by quantum optomechanics to address alternative formulations of quantum mechanics and quantum spacetime effects. Hybrid optomechanical systems and novel quantum estimation methods, which have recently attracted great interest, will be exploited due to their adaptability to the different scenarios addressed by pERFEcTO. The aim is to develop optimal estimation tools and strategies adapted to hybrid optomechanical systems in order to investigate quantum foundations and (quantum) spacetime models. Furthermore, the action will extend such a study all the way to the addressing of out-of-equilibrium thermodynamics of hybrid optomechanical systems to characterize the quantum-to-classical transition in these systems and explore their potentiality for engineering quantum thermal machines. The action envisions the collaboration with experts from academia through three secondments at leading European research institutes and is set to expand scientific, transferable and collaborative skills of the Experience Researcher. pERFEcTO embodies an innovative approach to key fundamental problems and, through an intensive training programme, significant dissemination activities, and effective knowledge transfer paves the way for the career development of a talented young researcher who has already proven a solid track record of scientific excellence.

Mots clés : opto mechanics, foundations of quantum mechanics, quantum spacetime structure, quantum thermodynamics, quantum estimation theory

Participants :
- Queen's University Belfast (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 183454.8 €
Projet ChroMOS (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2019)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The recent advent of active high-density implantable neural probes based on CMOS technology is a big leap forward in neuroscience. Unprecedentedly, these new probes provide simultaneous access to several thousands of single-neurons in different brain circuits. Although realized with different circuit’s architectures, such devices combine the use of standard CMOS and MEMS technologies to realize monolithic active dense probes that integrate into the same substrate hundreds of closely spaced microelectrodes together with electronic circuits for recording extracellular bioelectrical signals. However, despite their unique value, current CMOS-probes are not yet adapted for chronically stable implants and this is a major drawback both for neuroscience research as well as for growing potential clinical applications in fields such as brain-machine-interfaces or neuroprosthetics. An emerging hypothesis to minimize tissue-reactions and improve chronic stability of implantable probes consists in downscaling the cross-sectional sizes of their shafts as well as the overall system size. This fellowship proposes a deep study of this hypothesis by exploiting key advantages of monolithic CMOS based neural probes together with the optimization of circuits, materials and microfabrication processes. I will exploit my background in MEMs technologies and acquire new expertise in neuroscience to evaluate solutions for reducing CMOS shanks dimensions (20-80 µm width, 15-30 µm thick), strategies to improve tissue-materials interfaces, and to assess the effects of these features on brain tissue responses and recording performances. This will lead to ChroMOS probes with a very thin and uniform width (tens of microns) through all the shaft, and with electrode densities up to 1000 sites/mm2. This can lead to remarkably stable probe’s implants with large-scale single-neuron recording capabilities, far behind current technologies.

Mots clés : active dense implantable neural probes, micro systems, microelectrodes, neuroengineering, foreign body reactions, single neuron large scale recordings

Participants :
- Italian Institute of Technology (Italie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 183473.28 €
Projet GW (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2018)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The recent first detection of gravitational waves from a binary neutron star merger and its associated optical counterpart, the so-called 'kilonova', opened up a new era of multi messenger astronomy. The intense photometric and spectroscopic campaign that followed provided tantalising evidence that kilonovae are a prime source of heavy elements in the Universe. Nevertheless, with just a single event, and with only rudimentary theoretical models, it remains unclear how important kilonovae are in enriching the cosmos. This project aims to address this issue by building the first sample of kilonovae through dedicated follow-up observations of future compact binary mergers detected with the LIGO/Virgo gravitational wave detectors, which will soon come back online. The three principle objectives will be to (i) determine the ejecta mass distribution of kilonovae, (ii) identify the composition of kilonova ejecta and (iii) understand the progenitor systems of kilonovae from their host galaxies. Working with Jesper Sollerman and his GREAT group at Oskar Klein Centre, I will have access to ENGRAVE and GROWTH, which are two leading projects set up with the explicit goal to follow-up and monitor gravitational wave electromagnetic counterparts. The group at Oskar Klein Centre is leading vital research in theoretical modelling of compact object mergers. Combining observational resources, theoretical models and my analytical expertise in transient astronomy, this project promises to greatly contribute to the investigation of gravitational wave sources, kilonovae and the nucleosynthesis of heavy elements.

Mots clés : kilonovae, transients, photometry, spectroscopy

Participants :
- Stockholm University (Suède) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 191852.16 €
Projet RETHEX (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : SIGNED

The recent lockdown brought the commercial interaction of everyday life to a stop for most people in the world at almost the same time. This resulted in a general isolation that highlighted the extraordinary relevance of economic exchanges, also from a social and existential perspective. This experience showed how unfounded it is to think that exchange is just a matter of self-interest, as is believed both by those who criticize commerce for destroying social bonds and traditional ethical systems, and those who, on the contrary, unconditionally defend the market economy. This reduction of exchange to a matter of self-interest was not present in the formative stage of political economy when, in the late 18th century, the conceptualization of commerce was bound up with discussion on the origin of human society, and a richer connection between exchange, speech and sociability was conceived. It is thus a task of the utmost importance to rethink economic exchange today by reconsidering in their historical and theoretical depth the multidisciplinary debates on human nature, on the origin of sociability and of language. To this end, the project will be organised around three major axes associated with the following controversies: a) self-love and exchange in the debate on human nature; b) sociability, values and exchange in the debate on primitive societies; c) speech and exchange in the debate on the origin of language. The project will explore the connections between these different disputes which originated in Europe in the 17th century in the nascent disciplines of anthropology, linguistics, economic science. An interdisciplinary perspective will be adopted, combining the different kinds of sources ranging over time from the Essays of Montaigne to the works of Adam Smith. Thanks to this enlarged study on the origins of the modern concept of exchange, the project aims to provide a new definition of economic relationships, as well as a new hypothesis on economic agency.

Mots clés : history of economic thought, market, values, economic agency, enlightenment

Participants :
- University of Salento (Italie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 171473.28 €
Projet TopSpiD (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2016)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The recent understanding of the topological properties of matter has led to the search for the experimental production and control of topological excitations such as Majorana fermions. They appear at the boundary between a topological superconductor and a normal metal and have intriguing properties such as non-abelian exchange statistics and insensitivity to decoherence. Their production would give an invaluable insight on the properties of topological phases of matter as well as paving the way towards fault-tolerant quantum computing. The aim of this action is to create them in an ultracold atom set-up which is a ideal platform to engineer interesting Hamiltonians. We propose to create such excitations by combining effective spin-orbit coupling with superfluid properties. We will use near-resonant light which has led to the successful implementation of artificial magnetic fields and spin-orbit coupling in ultracold atoms. We want to produce the latter coupling while limiting the associated heating due to spontaneous emission: the key idea is to shine the near-resonant beams on a very small region, where spontaneous emission leads to losses but not to heating. We already have an apparatus able to realize the atomic equivalent of a quantum point contact. In this project, the experienced researcher, already expert in ultracold atom techniques, will lead the experimental team effort. As intermediate results, we will study the flow of atoms through “atomtronics” light structures, implement a cooling scheme using such an atomtronic device and understand the effect of increased losses in the channel on transport. The combination of these new potentials with superfluid behaviour for ultracold atoms leads to the implementation of the Kitaev model that bears the highly sought Majorana excitations, and detection will take advantage of easily accessible transport observables. The atomtronics techniques developed would open wide perspectives for future studies.

Mots clés : degenerate fermi gases, topological excitations, atomtronics, quantum transport, majorana fermions

Participants :
- Board of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (Suisse) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 175419.6 €
Projet DISC (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2014)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The recent years have witnessed the explosion of services and applications such as email, cloud computing, social and media networks, and video sharing. The grand challenge is to store, process and transfer this massive amount of data. According to recent estimates, the data to be stored grows at a rate of 45% per year, a factor of 40 by 2024. Data centers typically employ a collection of cheap devices/nodes, which are connected forming a so-called distributed storage (DS) system, where a central server keeps track of where each file is stored and performs all network operations. Every day, knowingly or unknowingly people connect to various private and public DS systems. It is nowadays accepted that current DS systems cannot face the unabated growing of digital data volume. Nextgeneration storage systems desperately need new technologies to improve their robustness to node failures, storage efficiency, complexity, and cost efficiency, in order to sustain the information revolution of modern societies. This project addresses the challenges above using modern coding theory and optimization theory. Our focus is on the application of sparse-graph erasure correcting codes to large DS networks. The proposed project falls into the category of fundamental research, but it is driven by practical concerns, and we expect our findings to give new and relevant insights for the design of practical coding schemes for next-generation DS systems.

Mots clés : distributed storage, error control coding, communications

Participants :
- Chalmers University of Technology (Suède) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 185857.2 €
Projet PalaeoBovids (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

The recent, detailed palaeoecological characterisation of a drowned ecosystem off the southern coast of Africa, known as the Palaeo-Agulhas Plain (PAP), has placed subfossil collections of African bovids from archaeological sites along this coast into meaningful environmental and temporal context. For the excellent work done to describe this palaeoecosystem, genetic characterisation of the mammals that roamed its plains is lacking, despite an abundance of subfossils available. In this Action, I will use palaeogenomics techniques to generate ancient mitochondrial genomic data of six African bovid species spanning five time periods over the past ~100,000 years, including the present. The target species represent three broad feeding guilds: grazers- Cape buffalo, long-horned buffalo (extinct) and southern reedbuck, a mixed feeder- common eland, and browsers- grey rhebok and Cape grysbok. These data will be used to investigate drivers of temporal changes in genetic diversity, such as climate change, range-size change due to the emergence and submergence of the PAP with changing sea levels, the emergence of pastoralism in human societies, over-hunting by colonial settlers, and recent population fragmentation, and whether different feeding guilds were affected discordantly. The project will be hosted by Assoc. Prof. Eline Lorenzen, a respected expert in the field of African bovid phylogeography and ancient DNA, at the GLOBE Institute at the University of Copenhagen, which houses a world-leading ancient DNA facility. This Action will improve my current scientific and transferable skills and will provide the opportunity for me to learn valuable new skills that will considerably enhance my future career prospects. In this Action, I will generate the first population-level palaeogenomic data of wildlife from southern Africa and contribute novel and valuable insights into the population dynamics of African bovids in relation to climate, humans, disease and extinction.

Mots clés : ancient dna, palaeogenomics, bovids, africa, conservation genetics, late quaternary, phylogeography, species distribution modelling

Participants :
- University of Copenhagen (Danemark) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 219312.0 €