Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-actions-marie-curie-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet condenSE (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2023)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Large language models (LLMs) have gained widespread attention and user adoption. These models, when trained on source code from platforms like GitHub, acquire a deep understanding of both the semantic and syntactic structures of code (i.e., code language models or CLMs). This understanding has paved the way for significant advancements in software engineering, offering developers valuable assistance in labor-intensive tasks like bug fixing and code writing. While CLMs offer tremendous assistance in software engineering tasks, their massive data requirements result in substantial energy consumption and CO2 emissions.  This proposal challenges the conventional wisdom that "more data is better" and instead advocates for a refined approach to data in the training of CLMs. We propose that by intentionally decreasing training data volume while simultaneously enhancing data quality through data refinement techniques, we can reduce energy consumption while maintaining or even improving performance on software engineering tasks. The condenSE project represents a pioneering effort to advance sustainable training practices for CLMs. Unlike existing methods, which are often non-systematic or limited to natural languages, condenSE promises a comprehensive approach to achieve sustainability via data refinement for CLMs.  This initiative is well-aligned with the EU Green Deal initiative and UN Sustainable Development Goals, and the increasing attention for LLMs and CLMs means that now is the right time to address their sustainability. The proposal's potential for success is further strengthened by the host institution's international standing, providing a wide range of collaborative opportunities, as well as by the complementary expertise of the applicant and supervisor, spanning the fields of software engineering, machine learning, dataset creation, and language model application.

Mots clés : sustainability, large language models, software engineering, data refinement, pre training, fine tuning

Participants :
- Simula Research Laboratory (Norvège) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 210911.04 €
Projet IONICCAT (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2021)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Making dimethyl ether (DME) from hydrogenating CO2 has attracted great interest as DME is a good propellant, coolant and clean fuel. This process can break the thermodynamic restriction that exists for methanol synthesis from CO2 and improve the conversion of main greenhouse gas. The synthesis of well-controlled shapes of solid materials in nano-size using ionic liquid (IL) solvents has received tremendous attention by taking advantage of their extraordinary properties. However, the remarkably high viscosity, which makes dispersing the support into the IL a major challenge, has limited their usage to the synthesis of un-supported nanoparticles. As an MSCA fellow, I will receive crucial training at KU Leuven and will work on developing a novel process for the synthesis of supported non-precious metal catalyst using IL. I will synthesize two generations of supported catalysts using novel synthesis procedures. I will produce the one-pot generation (OPG) catalyst by one-pot synthesis of support (zeolite) and metal oxide, whereas the well-structured generation (WSG) catalyst will be made by synthesizing zeolite using the IL as a co-solvent. For the OPG catalyst, both support and metal oxide will be synthesized simultaneously, while for the WSG catalyst, the IL that is used in zeolite synthesis will be re-used to engineer the metal oxide shape. Interestingly, to date the structure sensitivity of the CO2 hydrogenation to methanol and its coupling to DME has not been investigated. I will implement the new catalyst methodology to enhance the catalytic activity and selectivity of CO2 conversion to produce DME and establish synthesis-structure-activity relations.

Mots clés : ionic liquid non precious metal oxide zeolite heterogeneous catalysts co2 hydrogenation diethyl ether

Participants :
- KU Leuven (Belgique) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 191760.0 €
Projet MinDNA (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2022)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Sedimentary ancient DNA (SedaDNA) is DNA associated with non-recent sediments. SedaDNA are found to persist in the environment for geologically relevant timescales and have gained significant popularity for palaeoecological reconstructions and unravelling past biodiversity. Free DNA molecules degrade within days to weeks in the environment due exposure to nucleases, UV radiation, temperature fluctuations and slow spontaneous hydrolysis. The adsorption of DNA to mineral surfaces in sediments appear to preserve DNA molecules, but we do still not understand how mineralogy and soil and sediment conditions affect DNA retention, preservation and recovery. With more quantitative knowledge of DNA-mineral interactions, we can better address the preservation potential in a deposit, unravel the source area of the extracted DNA and develop extraction protocols that provide a higher yield. It is known that the DNA-mineral affinity and adsorption strength vary across mineral and environmental conditions and a strong DNA-mineral association can be speculated to offer a greater preservation potential in contrast to a week DNA-mineral interaction where there would be available bonds for participation in the degradation process. It is also unclear how co-adsorbed biomolecules influence sedaDNA retention and preservation. The aim of MinDNA is to obtain insights into the mechanisms and processes affecting DNA stability on mineral surfaces. MinDNA will take a multidisciplinary approach to obtain quantitative bond parameters, adsorption and degradation measures at the bulk and molecular level as well as performing molecular and bulk level in situ experiments to understand the dynamics of the reactions. Further, the chemistry and nature of the interacting bonds will be quantified using novel FTIR techniques. The gained knowledge will be combined into a conceptual model that can be used by a broad range of researchers to advance the resolution and scope of SedaDNA applications.

Mots clés : sedimentary ancient dna, dna preservation, dna degradation, adsorption, minerals, soil organic matter, geobiology, infrared imaging, atomic force microscopy, bond strength

Participants :
- Université de Copenhague (Danemark) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 230774.4 €
- Université de Lund (Suède) — Partner, associated partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
Projet COCOS (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2021)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Ecosystems provide many key services essential for our wellbeing. These services depend on the temporal stability of plant communities. In turn, stability depends on resistance, which is the capacity of plant communities to withstand exogenous perturbations, and on recovery from their impact. Extreme climatic events disrupt the stability of ecosystems, with unpredictable consequences on ecosystem services. As the intensity and frequency of climatic extremes is expected to rise, understanding how ecosystems respond to extremes is an extremely urgent task. Previous studies exploring the stability-climatic extremes relationship suffer from different limitations: i) lack of in-situ data on vegetation stability to conduct worldwide analyses; ii) scarce focus on the joint influence of taxonomic and functional diversity in affecting stability mechanisms under extreme climate. Moreover, few investigated if extremes cause critical transitions of ecosystem functions. This has prevented understanding of how different ecosystems react to climatic extremes. This project aims at addressing these limitations and improving our fragmented knowledge on the relationship between extremes and stability. Combining cutting-edge analytical tools with extensive, and novel, global databases of time-series of in-situ vegetation and climatic extremes data, the project will analyse the relationship between stability and climatic anomalies, and how it varies in different ecosystems. Results will provide worldwide predictions of ecosystem-specific resistance and recovery to climatic extremes, and new approaches for anticipating critical transitions of ecosystem functions. These outputs will be essential for i) guiding future policies aimed at reducing the impact of extremes on society; ii) mitigating economic loss due to extremes in crucial sectors such as agriculture and food production; iii) providing new methods for investigating how climatic extremes affect ecosystem services.

Mots clés : ecosystem stability, resistance and recovery, vegetation, extreme climatic events, time series

Participants :
- Czech University of Life Sciences Prague (Rép. Tchèque) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 150438.72 €
Projet VISCREEN (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2022)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : TERMINATED

Tools based on CRISPR-Cas systems hold great potential both for fundamental plant genetics and precision crop breeding. Unlike traditional mutagenic approaches, CRISPR-Cas systems allow for the simultaneous delivery of thousands of unique guide RNAs, enabling the generation of collections of higher-order mutants for rapid functional screens and the discovery of genetic interactions. However, CRISPR technology suffers from a ‘transformation bottleneck’; relatively few crop genotypes can be transformed and often only a handful of mutant lines can be produced. In virus-induced genome editing (VIGE), plant viruses are engineered to deliver gRNAs into cells. Such a capability is highly attractive for CRISPR knock-out (KO) screens as it could simplify the delivery and generate large populations of mutant lines in a broader range of crop genotypes. However, the application of VIGE for CRISPR KO screens is hampered by the lack of a proper viral-based multiplex gRNA delivery vector. My host lab has pioneered the development of CRISPR KO screens in plants, and in VISCREEN I will combine this knowledge with my expertise on VIGE to scale up CRISPR-Cas-mediated manipulation of plant genomes. The main objectives of my project are: (i) to develop Barley stripe mosaic virus (BSMV) for high-throughput CRISPR screens in wheat and maize; and (ii) to engineer and validate a set of viral vectors for VIGE in soybean. The viral vector-based, high-throughput editing systems developed in VISCREEN will expand CRISPR screens in a wider variety of crops and allow to test fundamental biological questions that are limited by functional redundancy. Overall, this innovative approach will make me a well-trained academic researcher with the capabilities to develop a professional career within the plant genome editing field.

Mots clés : crispr cas, virus induced genome editing, knockout screen, multiplexing

Participants :
- KU Leuven (Belgique) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 154418.67 €
Projet STRIDE (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2023)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Plasma physics has seen a long tradition of deriving simplified models such as magnetohydrodynamics through a process known as closure: starting from computationally demanding kinetics and following various analytical approximate schemes resulting in fluid-type models which are less accurate but more tractable. Due to smaller computational footprint these models have found applications in space weather modelling and fusion. The problem is that in many interesting applications, e.g. where collisions between particles are rare, the analytic closures have limitations. The goal of STRIDE (Systematic Techniques for Robust Inference and Data-driven Explainable closures for plasma) is to use machine learning to construct models with fewer degrees of freedom that describe kinetic processes relevant for Geospace Environmental Modelling (GEM), such as magnetic reconnection. Corrections to fluid-type models will be learned with deep neural networks and equation discovery and tested in numerical simulations. The important challenge involves understanding how such surrogates can be made robust against out-of-distribution shifts (i.e. different physical conditions) and numerical instabilities. Thus the closures will be first trained on data generated by high fidelity physics-based model, e.g. kinetic Particle-in-Cell simulations, for a specific set of parameters and then transfer learning will be applied to a different set of parameters to improve robustness. Uncertainty quantification and the ability to generate extremes will be investigated. The scientific question to be addressed here include: how can we interpret the trained models using explainable AI, what are the optimal ways of performing transfer learning and fine-tuning on the observational data, are there physical considerations (such as conservation laws or symmetries) that can reduce the costs associated with training such machine learning models? Trained models will be made open-source to foster research.

Mots clés : fluid closures physics informed machine learning space plasma laboratory plasma fusion multi scale simulations reduced order modelling pic simulations deep learning magnetic reconnection

Participants :
- KU Leuven (Belgique) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 175920.0 €
Projet FAST-MAP (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2023)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : SIGNED

The European Green Deal aims to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 55% by 2030 and achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. The industrial sector accounts for ca. 45% of carbon dioxide emissions, stemming from energy-intensive processes like power generation and chemical mixture purifications. Adsorptive separations by nanoporous materials have emerged as a promising platform for energy-efficient industrial purification and carbon sequestration. However, to evaluate the performance of an adsorbent and design a separation process, it is crucial to understand the adsorption thermodynamics and kinetics. Measuring multicomponent adsorption is complex and time-consuming, and adsorption kinetics are even more challenging to measure. As a result, multicomponent diffusion measurements are rare due to the constraints of current measurement methods. By bridging adsorption/diffusion studies and microfabrication, the FAST-MAP project will develop a new methodology to overcome the challenges of measuring multicomponent isotherms and diffusivities. Via a novel approach to realize out-of-equilibrium conditions combined with mass spectrometry, the behaviour of fast-diffusing molecules will be thoroughly evaluated, even in small adsorbent particles and in both single- and multicomponent scenarios. This approach will enable the rapid evaluation and selection of adsorbents for separation processes, thereby accelerating progress towards the zero-emissions target of the EU. The FAST-MAP project bridges the candidate's strong background in porous materials with the host group's extensive experience in microfabrication, making it a feasible undertaking.

Mots clés : metal organic frameworks, gas adsorption, carbon capture, adsorptive separations, and diffusion

Participants :
- KU Leuven (Belgique) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 175920.0 €
Projet TE-IonicPolyGels (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2021)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Thermoelectric ionic polymer gel (TEIPG) materials are rising generation of thermal energy harvesting materials which can harvest thermal energy by temperature gradient difference assisted thermo-diffusion of ions within the gel matrix. TEIPGs are claiming a bright future due to wide applications in heat harvesting and powering wearable electronics devices. However, a long way needs to be taken concerning material optimization and structural design to enhance the efficiency of these materials and accelerate the scale-up of the fabrication process of devices. The project TE-IonicPolyGels targets the development of TEIPG with a wide ionic Seabeck coefficient to realize improved energy harvesting and gel properties to meet printable device fabrication on rigid and flexible requirements. The project comprises the following aims: [A] functionalisation of Pluronic® polymer chain end groups with acidic/basic/neutral salt-based functional groups as new materials. [B] doping study of functionalized and bare Pluronic® polymers in thermoelectric gel system and screening of thermoelectric properties, [C] development of printable ink of TEIPGs for device fabrication and application in charging of wearable device and waste heat harvesting from the environment. This project will serve knowledge to utilize Pluronic® polymer to develop efficient TEIPGs with tunable Seebeck coefficient and printable ink formation properties. The project will be conducted by an early career material Research Scientist, Dr. Kevalkumar K. Sonigara, under the supervision of Prof. Martin Pumera at the Central European Institute of Technology (CEITEC), Brno University of Technology. The fellowship will expand the horizons and expertise of Dr. Sonigara in TEIPGs field and boost his employability and academic career. From TE-IonicPolyGels project, we hope to establish a robust scientific and technical platform for European science and technology and promote the European economy's prosperity.

Mots clés : pluronic polymers, ionic thermoelectric, thermoelectric polymer gel, ionic liquid, thermal energy harvesting, waste heat harvesting, printable devices

Participants :
- Université des technologies de Brno (Rép. Tchèque) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 166278.72 €
Projet EWRECA (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2023)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

In order to limit global warming to the well below 2°C of the United Nations’ Paris Agreement, model projections indicate that both rapid decarbonisation and the implementation of negative emission technologies (NETs) that ensure long-term stable carbon (C) sequestration will be required. Among NETs, enhanced weathering (EW) of silicate rocks can remove CO2 from the atmosphere, while potentially delivering co-benefits for agriculture (e.g. reduced nitrogen losses, increased yields, increased drought and salinity resistance) and reducing the overall greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from this activity. Thus, EW application may be of special interest on rice paddies since they: emit large quantities of methane (up to 11 % of global CH4 emitted); have high water demands and might face drought episodes due to climate change; and are exposed to salinity stress in Europe since they are cultivated in coastal areas. Although some studies have studied the effects of silicate waste on rice paddies, none of them have combined natural silicate rocks and waste simultaneously. Moreover, quantification of inorganic C sequestration through EW and the potential risks in terms of heavy metal contamination have rarely been assessed. The main goal of EWRECA is to develop an agricultural management practice for rice paddies that (i) minimises the GHG emissions, while maximising (ii) rice production (biomass and quality), and (iii) C sequestration. Moreover, EWRECA aims to re-use crushed concrete fines, an artificial silicate from construction waste, thus enhancing material circular economy. To achieve this objective, a mesocosm field experiment will be set up applying different agricultural management treatments. Responses on GHG emissions, plant biomass and soil microbial communities will be assessed over two growing seasons. Overall, this project will generate valuable scientific results that will be of interest for national, European and global strategic actions in agricultural systems.

Mots clés : enhanced weathering, greenhouse gas emissions, soil carbon sequestration, sustainable agriculture, microbial communities, circular economy

Participants :
- CERCA Institution (Espagne) — Partner, associated partner, Recherche, subvention : 0.0 €
- CERCA Institution (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 165312.96 €
Projet KARRONTE (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2023)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

KARRONTE is motivated by the controversial “Karakoram Anomaly” in High-Mountain Asia, which denotes the relative mass balance stability of glaciers in the Karakoram region under global warming, compared to the massive ice loss observed in other high-mountain glaciers. Recently, some possible explanations have been proposed in the literature, but all of them are based on coarse-resolution data sets, due to the scarcity of weather station data. The need for a new regional climate simulation for the Karakoram using convection-permitting scales is clear. These scales will allow the climate model to resolve convection directly in a physically consistent way, without the need for a cumulus parameterization scheme. Thus, the main objectives of KARRONTE are the following: (1) To create a novel regional climate simulation for the Karakoram, covering the last 15 years and adopting a spatial resolution of 3 km in the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. (2) To evaluate the temporal and spatial variability of precipitation and extreme events. (3) To investigate the relationship between recent trends of precipitation, local atmospheric dynamics and teleconnection patterns worldwide. These objectives will allow us to understand the drivers of extreme precipitation and the atmospheric dynamics in the Karakoram region, and to disentangle complex, local atmospheric effects related to the Karakoram Anomaly that could have been missed in previous analyses. KARRONTE will contribute to the evaluation of extreme event impacts and climate adaptation strategies. Its outcomes will also provide tools and fundamental knowledge to understand the effects of climate change on other high-mountain environments, such as those in Europe and other continents. Regarding my research career, KARRONTE will foster my independence and my ability to attract funding, and it will enable me to develop the competencies and skills valuable to become a young research group leader in the near future.

Mots clés : extreme events, precipitation, high mountain asia, regional climate modelling

Participants :
- Basque Centre for Climate Change (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 165312.96 €