Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-actions-marie-curie-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet METEV (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2023)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The sensing of blood nutrient availability, storage, and delivery requires robust inter-tissue crosstalk mechanisms which, for the last 70 years, we have still trying to understand in health and disease. When these mechanisms fail, metabolic pathologies such as Metabolic Syndrome (MetSy) ensue. MetSy is a complex entity that has emerged as a worldwide epidemic. The lack of knowledge of its nature, the absence of any efficient treatment, and the increasing prevalence imply a major public health concern. MetSy is defined as abdominal obesity, insulin resistance, misbalance in lipid profile, and high cardiovascular and diabetes type 2 risks. These factors, dysregulated simultaneously, suggest an underlying mechanism linking all these metabolic impairments. In 2019, I published an article proposing a novel nutrient delivery mechanism from blood to tissues based on extracellular vesicles (EVs) biology. Since then, other groups have corroborated our findings, supporting the idea that, as a complementation of the classical nutrient delivery mechanisms, EVs in circulation (cEVs) are able to deliver metabolic fuels from blood to tissues. While this new cEVs-based mechanism is occurring in healthy subjects, we don´t know if it is falling in MetSy patients, or even if it is relevant enough to alter human physiopathology. METEV aims to study these last two concepts, to address a better understanding of metabolic pathologies, in particular, the role of cEVs in the development of MetSy. My main personal objective is to learn (training) and take advantage of cutting-edge technologies to improve the knowledge of metabolic pathologies with potential relevant implications in multiple fields of medicine. This will allow forging future interdisciplinary collaborations with professionals from different areas. The present MSCA enables the development of my own collaborative network, as I will work at the Hospital La Fe (Spain), with a secondment at Aalborg University Hospital (Denmark).

Mots clés : extracellular vesicles metabolic syndrome nutrients delivery from blood to tissues

Participants :
- Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria La Fe (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 181152.96 €
- Université d'Aalborg (Danemark) — Partner, associated partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
Projet SnaPump (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2024)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : SIGNED

In the last decade, flexible mechanical metamaterials have demonstrated their great scientific potential. By exploiting mechanical instabilities in such structures, researchers have observed the propagation of transition waves yielding both fundamental implications (analog material to understand ferroelectric phase transitions, dislocation motion in crystals) and engineering applications (elective signal transmission, acoustic insulators). Most studies focus on the properties of the waves at the metamaterial level, without analyzing the details of the transition at the building block level. As a result, the mechanisms that govern the propagation of these waves remain poorly understood, which greatly limits their range of application. In this research project I propose a bottom-up approach to investigate this class of phenomena. Specifically, I will experimentally and numerically study the overlooked mechanisms of the snap-through instability of a single bistable arch. This will allow me to design a 1D array of such arches connected via rotating hinges in which an elastic snap-through wave can propagate. I will then put to test this new knowledge in the rarely explored domain of fluid-structure interaction with mechanical metamaterials. Specifically, I propose to exploit these elastic waves for fluid transport applications via peristaltic pumping. This project will yield general rules to design structures that propagate controlled transition waves, and will open new avenues for their use in interaction with fluids.

Mots clés : elastic instability, fluid structure interactions, non linear waves

Participants :
- Centre national de la recherche scientifique (France) — Partner, associated partner, Recherche, subvention : 0.0 €
- Sorbonne Université (France) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 226420.56 €
Projet EPICORAL (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2024)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

At least 500 million people and >25% of all marine species directly rely on coral reefs – an ecosystem valued at $9.9 trillion annually, but one that is predicted to decline 70-90% by 2050 due to global climate threats. In addition to reef adaptation strategies, targeted approaches to enhance coral acclimation are critical for the persistence of reefs under future climate change scenarios. Yet, the molecular mechanisms underpinning acclimation in corals remain unclear, hindering the development of new restoration technologies. Environmentally sensitive epigenetic modifications, such as DNA methylation, are important molecular mediators of acclimation in many species. However, in corals, it remains unclear how DNA methylation is linked to climate resilience. With the support of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, EPICORAL will test a new, integrative and mechanistic hypothesis: that DNA methylation mediates coral climate resilience by maintaining transcriptional fidelity under stressful conditions. EPICORAL will take a multidisciplinary approach, building on complementary areas of expertise in marine ecology, genomics, epigenetics and transcriptomics to leverage a unique, in-situ experiment in a semi enclosed lagoon (where corals are long-term acclimatized to acidification, deoxygenation and thermal stress), and at a nearby control reef (where conditions are more benign). EPICORAL aims to elucidate previously unexplained scientific findings through high level training and knowledge transfer. By uncovering the role DNA methylation plays in coral climate resilience, EPICORAL will help to validate reef restoration approaches relying on the concept of “epigenetic conditioning” and provide early indications of coral stress-exposure through the development of “epigenetic biomarkers”.

Mots clés : dna methylation, corals, coral reefs, spurious transcription, gene expression, frontloading

Participants :
- Université James Cook (Australie) — Partner, associated partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
- Sorbonne Université (France) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 242260.56 €
Projet ECO-SOC (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2024)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The evolution of sociality is a key question in behavioural ecology, with certain forms of social organization, like fission-fusion (FF) dynamics, still debated. FF dynamics, where groups split into smaller sub-groups, are thought to evolve in response to fluctuations in resource availability to reduce food competition and travel costs. However, comprehensive multi-site and multi-species studies linking FF dynamics to RA are lacking.  The "Ecological determinants of Sociality" (ECO-SOC) project aims to fill this gap by analyzing long-term datasets of FF dynamics in orangutans, because of their unique individual-based FF organization. In addition, ECO-SOC will further extend this approach to encompass long-term existing datasets of at least ten FF primate taxa. Using advanced Bayesian regression methods, the project will identify general patterns and variability within and between species, enhancing our understanding of the evolution of FF dynamics. One clear strength of ECO-SOC is its integration of existing datasets, mitigating the risks and environmental costs associated with long-term fieldwork.  This research has important conservation implications, particularly for wild FF primates living outside protected areas. Understanding their social responses to RA will aid behavior-based management and the protection of key food resources. Additionally, the findings can improve zoo housing guidelines for FF species, which are often kept in permanent groups which deviates from their natural social behaviour. Thus, ECO-SOC will help identify species that need more naturalistic housing conditions to promote welfare.  Through ECO-SOC, I will apply modern statistical methods on long-term datasets, develop a theoretical framework, and engage in dissemination targeting the public, zoo managers, and young Indonesian conservationists, among others. Altogether, ECO-SOC contributes to 6 UN Sustainable Development Goals through its scientific and societal impact.

Mots clés : socioecology, fission fusion, primate ecology, evolutionary ecology, behavioural ecology

Participants :
- Société Max-Planck pour le développement des sciences (Allemagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 217965.12 €
Projet ULT-SCES-NMR (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2024)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Quantum materials reveal their nature at low temperatures, where thermal fluctuations vanish and the system falls into its lowest energy state. However, this state is far from “static”. Quantum fluctuations, arising from the uncertainty principle and the exclusion rules of quantum mechanics, give rise to unexpected phenomena, such as the mediated pairing of electrons, leading to unconventional superconductivity. Prototypical compounds to study these phenomena are heavy-fermion (HF) superconductors. In these materials superconductivity arises near magnetic quantum critical points -- the points at T = 0 where magnetically ordered phases are suppressed and quantum fluctuations are particularly strong. There exists growing evidence that pairing is mediated by magnetic critical fluctuations. One of the best example is the HF superconductor YbRh2Si2 (Tc < 10 mK) in which strong ferromagnetic (FM) as well as antiferromagnetic (AFM) fluctuations were observed. To understand the nature and role of FM and AFM fluctuations in this compound and generally in strongly correlated electron systems (SCES) and to explain their impact on quantum criticality and superconductivity - e.g. the parity of the Cooper pairs - we propose to build a broadband nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometer. NMR is a non-invasive and low-dissipation technique, well suited for probing in the stringent ultra-low temperature conditions under which these phenomena occur. Utilizing a DC SQUID sensor, coupled to the pickup of the NMR spectrometer by a flux transformer, is a way of drastically improving signal-to-noise ratio and enable operation at very low static fields, in contrast to standard NMR techniques. This is essential for studying superconductivity. Understanding the relationship between quantum fluctuations and unconventional superconductivity is crucial for developing new materials with higher superconducting transition temperatures and for potential applications in quantum devices.

Mots clés : squid, nmr, unconventional superconductivity, ybrh2si2, ultra low temperatures, sces

Participants :
- Société Max-Planck pour le développement des sciences (Allemagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 217965.12 €
Projet AI4ESP (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2024)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Babbling is a critical milestone of infant speech development. In only 12 months, infants explore how to move their mouth, tongue, and vocal cords to produce increasingly complex sounds before eventually producing their first words. Investigating early vocal development in both typical and atypical infant populations requires meticulous efforts involving the time-consuming and labor-intensive process of manually transcribing children’s linguistic productions. The present action, at the crossroads between speech processing, machine learning, and language acquisition, proposes to 1) build an open-source automatic universal phone recognizer for infant vocalizations to accelerate language acquisition research; 2) design an innovative measure to assess when early vocalizations reflect the infant’s ambient language(s); and 3) apply the developed methodology to the study of typical and atypical infant populations. By combining large-scale multilingual corpora and state-of-the-art automatic speech processing tools, our first objective is to endow researchers with a novel tool to advance our understanding of infants’ early vocal development. Our second objective is to shed new light on the simple yet controversial question: When do infants start exhibiting distinct babbling patterns across different languages? Beyond its theoretical implications, our proposal holds clinical significance as we will apply the developed tools and measures to investigate early vocal markers associated with speech disorders, constituting our third objective.


Participants :
- Société Max-Planck pour le développement des sciences (Allemagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 217076.16 €
Projet SMASH (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2023)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Sustainable development is one of the main challenges that humanity has to face to progress. The construction industry strongly influences the achievement of this goal, as it heavily impacts on resource and energy consumption, waste production, greenhouse gas emission. The extension of the service life of structures will be one of the measures necessary for this sector to support sustainable development, since it can save resources, decrease the carbon footprint and reduce waste production. Reinforced concrete structures (RCS) represent the vast majority of the built environment, so research efforts should be focused especially on this type of structures. One of the most promising approaches to prolong the service-life of RCS is the development and implementation of Smart Structures, being structures able to sense some external stimuli, process the information and respond autonomously in real time by using smart materials technologies. Research on this topic is advancing, but it is still a challenge to achieve efficient systems. The final goal of SMASH is precisely to develop an efficient “Smart Material” system to be implemented in RCS in order to enhance their service life, on the way to sustainable development. The key enabling technologies to develop this system will be capsule-based self-healing and voltammetric sensors, combined together to produce a synergic effect. With the support of my supervisor (Prof. Paola Antonaci) and her extensive knowledge in the development and characterization methods for innovative building materials, the fellowship will train me in the frontier fields of self-healing and advanced repair technologies, complementing my expertise on sensor systems. Ultimately, SMASH will provide a crucial contribution to relevant research on the reduction of the environmental impact of the construction sector, and on the advancement of smart materials to achieve smart structures, in order to reach SDG 11 (Sustainable cities and communities).


Participants :
- École polytechnique de Turin (Italie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 172750.08 €
Projet BC-Int (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2021)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Gas turbines play a vital role in terms of energy and mobility in 21st century. Accurate simulation tools are mandatory to increase competitiveness by increasing safety and reducing development costs. The growing tendency of designers to increase the efficiency of turbines has led to reduced operating clearances between rotating and static components and consequently frequent structural contact during operation. On top of that, the design tendency to reductions in fuel burn, noise and emissions makes the structural components lighter, slenderer and under greater excitation which increases their geometrically nonlinear behavior. Reliable analysis of the dynamic response of a turbine during blade-casing contact-induced interactions is of great importance due to its impact on fatigue life or potential catastrophic failure. The project aims at developing a validated numerical tool to predict the vibration due to blade-casing interactions. High computational efficiency will be granted by a nonlinear model order reduction technique able to handle both contact (local) and geometric (global) nonlinearities. The numerical predictive tool will be experimentally validated, taking advantage of the experimental equipment available at the host institution. The BC-Ints project aims at developing and validating mathematical and numerical models where both local and global nonlinearities are taken into account for an accurate prediction of the dynamic behaviour of rotors in case of blade-casing interactions.

Mots clés : bladed disk, blade casing interaction, contact dynamics, geometric nonlinearity, blade tip rubbing, modal interaction, experiment

Participants :
- École polytechnique de Turin (Italie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 188590.08 €
Projet PHY-GO (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2021)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Marine phytoplankton are a primary vector in the transport of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to the ocean interior via the biological carbon pump. The magnitude and efficiency of this flux hinges on phytoplankton community structure—the relative abundance of different phytoplankton groups present within a given water mass. Therefore, accurate estimates of phytoplankton community structure are crucial for understanding global carbon cycles and for anticipating the impact of global climate change. Phytoplankton distributions within the global ocean are typically inferred from bio-optical proxies reflecting phytoplankton physiology (e.g., chlorophyll fluorescence) or concentrations of particulate carbon (e.g., attenuation coefficients or optical backscatter coefficients). The deployment of biogeochemical Argo (BGC-Argo) autonomous profiling floats is transforming the global coverage of these measurements, providing new insight into connections between phytoplankton distributions and export processes. However, few studies have evaluated relationships between bio-optical proxies as measured by BGC-Argo floats and direct measurements of phytoplankton community structure, and none have performed an intercomparison of these relationships across different ocean basins. Therefore, I propose to 1) utilize a combination of novel and existing flow cytometry methods to estimate group-specific phytoplankton biomass across four disparate ocean provinces, 2) evaluate the bio-optical proxies that best predict group-specific phytoplankton biomass within each province, 3) leverage relationships identified in objective 2 to develop a novel transfer function for estimating phytoplankton biomass based on bio-optical proxies alone, and 4) apply this function to existing BGC-Argo data to quantify the importance of variability in phytoplankton community structure to carbon export to the mesopelagic zone, as compared to other mechanisms.

Mots clés : phytoplankton ecology marine bio optics autonomous platforms flow cytometry chlorophyll carbon cycl

Participants :
- Université Rutgers (Etats-Unis) — Partner, associated partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
- Sorbonne Université (France) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 211754.88 €
Projet BrainDial (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2024)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Language comprehension naturally occurs in face-to-face dialogues. During dialogue interactions, language unfolds rapidly, yet comprehension remains possible because listeners anticipate what speakers will say next. Studies using short sentences and isolated visual cues (e.g., lip movements, hand gestures) suggest that these predictions rely on both linguistic content and the speaker’s visual behavior. However, little is known about how the brain processes multiple co-occurring audiovisual cues during natural dialogue, the primary context for language use. Moreover, while dialogues are rich in pragmatic and prosodic audiovisual cues that support comprehension, their influence on word-level predictions remains unclear. The complexity of dialogues has traditionally made it challenging to study their neural basis, but recent methodological advances now allow for the naturalistic investigation of continuous speech processing. For the firts time, BrainDial (Brain Dynamics of Audiovisual Dialogue) will apply these advances in an ecologically valid audiovisual dialogue setting. We will record natural dialogues and analyze their acoustic, linguistic, and visual cues. These annotated recordings will be used in a magnetoencephalography (MEG) study to reveal the fine-grained temporal dynamics and corticoanatomical details of how the brain generates linguisitc audiovisual predictions in real time. By integrating multimodal dialogue corpus annotations, computational linguisitc metrics derived from large-language models (LLMs), body-motion tracking, MEG, and neural computational modelling, BrainDial aims to provide groundbreaking insights into the neural mechanisms of dialogue comprehension.

Mots clés : language processing, multimodal language, neural encoding, dialogue, magnetoencephalography, prediction, naturalistic language, gesture, cortical tracking, neural modelling

Participants :
- Société Max-Planck pour le développement des sciences (Allemagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 217076.16 €