Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-actions-marie-curie-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ART4Brain (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2021)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Problem. Coronary heart disease (CHD) patients have a 45% higher risk of cognitive impairment and dementia. Currently, there is no effective therapy to prevent or cure those brain-related diseases. Recent studies showed that physical activity is associated with better cognitive functioning and a risk reduction of cognitive impairment and dementia in the general population. However, studies in CHD patients are largely absent. Evidence about the brain-related health benefits of physical activity are mostly based on aerobic exercise, but recent studies showed that resistance exercise also provides potent health benefits. ART4Brain. The overall aim of the ART4Brain project is to explore the effect of exercise and physical activity on cerebral blood flow, as a potential mechanism of cognitive decline, and executive functioning in CHD patients. Physical activity levels can be an important target in the CHD population, since the prevalence of physical inactivity is high. Accordingly, I will study the following scientifically and clinically relevant objectives: 1. Examine the effects of aerobic vs resistance exercise on global cerebral blood flow and other brain health outcomes such as cerebral vascularisation, brain structure and function using innovative MRI techniques; 2. Examine the association of objectively assessed combinations of behaviours across the full physical activity spectrum (physical activity, sedentary behaviour and sleep) on executive functioning (cognitive flexibility, working memory, inhibitor control/attention); 3. Translate scientific knowledge into a digital exercise training program by visiting the commercial partner EXi. Relevance for science and candidate. I will use innovative approaches to investigate the potential of exercise and physical activity to improve brain-related outcomes in CHD patients. The studies and training are performed in a world-renowned research group, which will greatly expand my expertise and boost my scientific career.

Mots clés : exercise cardiovascular disease cognition brain physical activity

Participants :
- Iprescribe exercise digital ltd (Royaume-Uni) — Partner, associated partner, Autres, subvention : 0.0 €
- Université de Grenade (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 181152.96 €
Projet UnderTheSands (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2021)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Ancient irrigation systems are probably the first human large-scale landscape modifications. The analysis of the ancient irrigation systems that gave rise to and sustained the first urban civilisations goes well-beyond the study of ancient irrigation to touch topics such as climate change, sustainability, population dynamics, and ancient economy, all at the core of urbanisation as a deeply human phenomenon, perhaps the most important change in the history of humanity. For many decades ancient water management research in archaeology was mainly focused on the Near East and surrounding regions with similar hydroclimatic conditions. The political situation in that region and, as a consequence, the lack of new data nearly stopped further scientific activities. The relevance of this research topic, however, did not decrease and many methods for the study of ancient irrigation and water management using remote sensing haven been developed during the last years. However, most previous approaches are region-focused (lacking applicability to other environments) and have mostly detected isolated channels, which complicates the study and understanding of the network that constituted ancient irrigation systems. UnderTheSands will employ a combination of novel remote sensing techniques (including Multi-Scale Relief Model, Seasonal Multitemporal Vegetation Indices, hybrid machine-deep learning algorithms, archaeomorphology, spatial correlation indices, and historical analyses) and sources (including multispectral imaging, synthetic aperture radar, and TanDEM-X) to produce a workflow for the detection and analysis of ancient irrigation networks in diverse environments. These methods and the training provided during their implementation by a team of leading international researchers will enhance the candidate's profile with cutting-edge techniques that will situate him at the forefront of research in ancient irrigation and boost his career.

Mots clés : machine learning deep learning remote sensing, landscape archaeology ancient irrigation near east

Participants :
- Institut Català d'Arqueologia Clàssica (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 181152.96 €
Projet IArchMap (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2021)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Intelligent Archaeological Mapping of Long-Term Settlement in Punjab (IArchMap) will develop a new workflow for the development of archaeological regional surveys through the application of machine learning methods to historical maps, multitemporal multisource satellite data and drone-acquired high-resolution imagery. These will be tested and complemented by field ground-truthing and analysis of field material. This new methodological approach will allow archaeologists to map atand characterise information on past human settlement over large areas with an unprecedent speed and accuracy. IArchMap will complement site detection methods with data on landscape change that might have impacted human settlement and the formation and preservation of the archaeological record. IArchMap design is based in a combination of experimental approaches currently in development by the supervisor and the host research group. The Action’s training will provide the researcher with the capacities required to implement those approaches in a single workflow for the first time. The research previous experience and expertise will provide ground-truthing data and an interpretative background to evaluate the project’s data contribution to current historical debates. The selected regional case-study, the territory of the modern Punjab State (India) has been intensively settled since prehistory, but it has been significantly less explored than neighbouring regions. The project’s results will represent a significant step-forward in the knowledge on the historical settlement dynamics of the study area and the Indus Region in general; and will benefit its Cultural Heritage management and preservation. Methods and data employed for IArchMap will be freely accessible, which opens the possibility to apply them to other regions of South Asia and elsewhere.

Mots clés : landscape archaeology, regional survey, computational archaeology, south asia

Participants :
- Institut Català d'Arqueologia Clàssica (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 165312.96 €
Projet FoodMod-RGB (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2023)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Food is at once a universal necessity and subject to the particularities of environmental and socio-cultural setting. Examining trends in food consumption provides a means with which to detect shifts in past economies, and can greatly augment current understandings of the ways ancient populations interreacted with each other as well as their environments. This project will explore the diverse ways that Roman imperial occupation impacted provincial lifeways, as reflected in foodways, or more specifically, food plants. As food plants were a traded commodity, tracking their trade and transport allows important new light to be shed on economic connectivity, trade networks, as well as culturescapes and the intricate social dynamics that influence consumption patterns.  The focus will be on the Roman provinces of Britannia and Gaul, regions which are historically and geographically distinct, but also interconnected in terms of their proximity and necessary transport links. A large body of archaeobotanical data will be collated and entered into a relational database. Data analyses will look to methods from computational archaeology, employing underutilised techniques of advanced network analyses in order to model spatial and social distributions in food plants. In acquiring these new skills, the candidate will be able to combine such methods with existing expertise in large-scale, regional archaeobotanical studies.  Results will complement current knowledge on food plant trade by filling the essential gap that is the geographical centre of the European provinces, Gaul, as well as shedding new light on trade in the frontiers. Implications will be far-reaching, offering novel insight into socio-economic networks, as well as human-landscape relationships, and complex nature of cultural dynamics within imperial spheres. Such topics are not only of great relevance to the ancient world, but also to modern studies of food and the impacts of the global economy.

Mots clés : archaeobotany, network analysis, roman archaeology

Participants :
- Institut Català d'Arqueologia Clàssica (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 181152.96 €
Projet DNAOrgCat (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2024)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Asymmetric catalysis is arguable the most appealing way to prepare complex chiral scaffolds. In this context, metal-catalyzed transformations have been more widely used in comparison to metal-free strategies. Nonetheless, the complexity involved with the transition metal catalysts, the toxicity often associated with the metals and the none-negligible amounts of waste produced during the reactions have caused significant drawbacks. The advent of green and sustainable chemistry brought organocatalysis into prominence (2021 Nobel Prize in Chemistry), allowing the field to emerge as an effective alternative to classical metal-based asymmetric catalysis. Small Molecule Organocatalysts (SMOs) have been used in a plethora of different synthetic transformations. Their stability to air excludes the need for inert conditions and ultra-dry solvents and thus minimizes overall research expenditure. Among all the SMOs reported throughout the years, N-heterocyclic carbenes (NHCs) have shown great promise, offering interesting prospects for both academic and industrial applications. In the last decade, bio-hybrid DNA-based asymmetric catalysis (DAC) has appeared as an attractive tool providing excellent enantioselectivities on a broad range of reactions. DNAOrgCat aims at combining, for the first time, asymmetric organocatalysis and bio-hybrid catalysis to develop new, highly enantioselective, scalable and sustainable organocatalytic processes. To reach this goal, we will design, synthesize and ultimately evaluate a series of NHC-modified oligonucleotides on a model Stetter reaction. We will also develop sustainable catalytic systems based on recyclable, solid-supported, modified oligonucleotides, which will ultimately be implemented to large-scale continuous flow processes. By doing so, not only do we intend to expand the current frontiers of DNA-based asymmetric catalysis, we also wish to set a mind change and unquestionably place DNA-based catalysts in the chemists’ toolbox.

Mots clés : asymmetric catalysis, organocatalysis, biohybrid catalysis, n heterocyclic carbenes

Participants :
- Queen Mary University of London (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 260347.92 €
Projet GREMA (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2021)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Phytoplankton is responsible of almost the half of earth’s primary production. Among the different components of the phytoplankton, there is an important group of picosized green algae (between 0.8 and 3um), the Mamiellophyceae, that is ubiquitous in the sunlit ocean and can reach high abundances in coastal environments. The first population genomics study of the Mamiellophycean species Ostreococcus tauri, revealed indirect evidences of recombinant events and the presence of two different mating types (M+ and M-), which led to the description of these two mating types in another three Mamiellophycean species. However we do not know whether this candidate mating-type structure is conserved throughout earlier diverging Mamiellophyceaen lineages. Neither do we know the relative frequency of the two mating types in natural communities and which environmental factors influence mating and recombination. Therefore, the major aim of this proposal is to elucidate the evolution of mating types and the prevalence of recombination across natural populations in ecologically relevant phytoplanktonic species (Mamiellophyceae), including the estimation of environmental effects in mating. To address this, I will use a multidisciplinary approach taking advantage of an original set of genomic datasets (population genomics data, new genomic sequences and metagenomic data from natural communities) and experimental tools, which will allow me to contribute to solving an important knowledge gap in the life cycle of Mamiellophyceae. Specifically, I will focus in identifying the prevalence of recombination in two closely related species of Otreococcus, capture the ecology and evolution of mating types across Mamiellophyceae and detect the abiotic and biotic factors that affect mating in O. tauri. For the latter, I will take advantage of genetic transformation techniques to select recombinant cells.

Mots clés : recombination, mating, mamiellophyceae, green algae, marine microbes

Participants :
- Centre national de la recherche scientifique (France) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 211754.88 €
Projet TOKMAT (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2022)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Like all human undertakings, mathematics is pursued, promoted, and developed by socially and culturally situated practitioners immersed in the complex collectivities of their communal, practical, and institutional affiliations. However, while few would oppose viewing any other major, artistic, social, political, or religious undertaking as socially constructed, social constructivism in mathematics, specifically regarding the notions of truth and objectivity, remains highly contested among historians and philosophers of science and mathematics. The TOKMAT project uses intuitionism in order to develop a new technique for understanding the concept of truth in mathematics. This technique will be based on a conceptual analysis of the ideas of truth, realism, objectivity, and knowledge in mathematics through the prism of social constructivism. Intuitionism presented an alternate mathematical framework to classical mathematics, that viewed mathematical entities as creations of the mind. As intuitionism acknowledges the social constructivists’ claim that truth is a wholly human construction, it is a springboard towards a wide-reaching rethinking of the main constructivist account of mathematics. As a non-mainstream mathematical school whose ideas are still being discussed, intuitionism is a springboard towards exploring the social organization of scientific knowledge and its impact on our understanding of concepts like truth and objectivity. The project, therefore, brings together the history, sociology and philosophy of mathematics in order to provide new ways of understanding the notions of truth and objectivity in mathematics as shaped by both external and contextual elements. In doing so, this project aspires to contribute to the heady debates on epistemology, philosophy of mathematics, and the social constitution of warranted knowledge.

Mots clés : philosophy of mathematics social construction sociology of science mathematical truth mathematical objectivity intuitionism epistemology of knowledge scientific disagreements

Participants :
- Institut de technologie du Massachusetts (Etats-Unis) — Partner, associated partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
- Université hébraïque de Jérusalem (Israël) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 197551.2 €
Projet CuspCore (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2022)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : CLOSED

We address both the long-standing puzzle of the origin of a universal cusp in dark-matter (DM) halos and the challenge introduced by new observational indications for a dearth of central DM and flat cores in a certain fraction of the galaxies. Such DM-deficient cores are reported both in massive galaxies at high redshifts and in dwarf galaxies, contrary to the expectations for a cusp based on current simulations within the standard LCDM cosmological scenario. We propose to better understand the structural evolution of DM halos in response to drastic mass changes and the gravitational interplay between the DM and the baryons, including inflows, mergers, tidal effects, and outflows. For this, we will develop our analytic model, CuspCore, which would provide a unified framework for following the violent relaxation of a halo after it has been perturbed from an equilibrium configuration. Utilizing this framework, we will work out a scenario for DM-deficient cores in high-z massive galaxies via DM "heating" by dynamical friction on compact merging satellites followed by DM expansion in response to AGN-driven outflows. The same framework will serve to generate cores in dwarf galaxies via supernova feedback and tidal stripping. Finally, we will attempt to use this framework to understand the original universal cuspy profile of DM halos based on non-adiabatic growth. Success in modeling the violent-relaxation process in these circumstances will be crucial for meeting the immediate challenges to the standard cosmological model, and it promises a general impact on other broad applications of galactic dynamics.

Mots clés : galactic dynamics

Participants :
- Université hébraïque de Jérusalem (Israël) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 200538.24 €
Projet Harcotrec (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2021)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The rapid progress in the development of quantum computers is accompanied by the demand for devices enable to connect them into a quantum network. These devices are transducers that coherently convert microwave radiation into infrared light and vice versa at the single-photon level. The aim of the project is thus to investigate an innovative transducer scheme based on fully concentrated rare earth crystals with efficiency, bandwidth and suppression of the added noise higher than the current transducers. By exploiting the large non-linear properties of these crystals in the proximity of their sharp electronic and spin transitions, the microwave field will be mixed with an optical laser field to generate a new optical field that will carry the quantum information previously encoded into the microwave field. To achieve this goal, carefully selected crystals will be grown and their optical, hyperfine and antiferromagnetic resonances analyzed at mK cryogenic temperatures. Ultra-narrow tunable lasers and microwave generators coupled with a radiofrequency cavity will provide the optical and microwave fields and the frequency mixing process will be characterized via heterodyne technique. The rare earth crystals performance will be finally assessed towards implementing microwave to optical transduction in the quantum regime.

Mots clés : quantum transduction, rare earth spectroscopy, antiferromagnetic crystals, quantum information, 

Participants :
- Centre national de la recherche scientifique (France) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 211754.88 €
Projet REFLOW (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2024)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Biological soil crusts (biocrusts) cover up to 12% of the Earth's surface and are integral to nutrient cycling in these nutrient-deficient ecosystems because they have remarkable ability to fix atmospheric carbon and nitrogen. Recent studies have begun to recognize biocrusts as a potentially substantial source of reactive nitrogen, which can have significant consequences for the atmosphere. However, these estimations suffer from limited observations, particularly in some major biocrust-clustered zones that have been overlooked. Additionally, the emissions of reactive carbon, which also carry significant atmospheric and climatic implications, remain unexplored.  Therefore, this project aims to address these gaps by pursuing the following objectives: (1) Quantify the sources of reactive nitrogen and carbon from biocrusts across various global locations, (2) Establish empirical relationships between biocrust emissions of reactive nitrogen and carbon and environmental factors, particularly under the influence of climate change, and (3) Generate improved predictions for regional and global-scale emissions of reactive nitrogen and carbon by integrating them into the existing modeling framework.  This endeavor leverages state-of-the-art online measurement techniques for atmospheric reactive gases and employs a mechanistic modeling approach, and a high degree of complementary expertise between the host (secondment) and I. Ultimately, this project promises to significantly enhance our understanding of reactive nitrogen and carbon emissions from biocrusts on a global scale and provide a reliable foundation for assessing their atmospheric and climatic implications.

Mots clés : reactive nitrogen, volatile organic compounds, biocrusts, climate change, dryland

Participants :
- Université de Copenhague (Danemark) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 263393.28 €
- Université de Graz (Autriche) — Partner, associated partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €