Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-actions-marie-curie-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet Dig-For-Arch (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2015)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The examination of physical evidence and the environment in which it is found remains pivotal in the investigation of crime. There has also been a greater appreciation in recent years of the role of archaeologists in forensic contexts where buried or concealed evidence exists. However, recording techniques in forensic archaeological work, and in crime scene investigation in general, essentially remain focused on traditional means of documenting, sketching and photographing environments. These techniques can be laborious and they do not provide data outputs suitable for presentation in Court to non-experts. A number of novel, digital non-invasive methods which have the potential to increase search efficiency and accuracy, permit access to difficult and/or dangerous environments, create a more accurate record of buried or concealed evidence and provide more effective means of presenting evidence in Court. In order to develop and apply novel digital recording methods and 5D, 4D and 3D modelling techniques for use by forensic archaeologists and crime scene investigators, the Dig For-Arch project is proposed. This project will aim to change the way in which buried and concealed evidence is analysed at crime scenes through these new techniques and through an associated programme of training and support for specialists and professionals working in this area. The Dig For-Arch project will offer the opportunity for the Experienced Researcher to engage in a new field of study (forensic science and forensic archaeology), thus diversifying his portfolio of work and offering new trajectories for his future career. The new field in which he will be working will benefit from his extensive expertise developed in other areas and from the cross-sector/cross-disciplinary expertise of the wider project group. Little has been published on digital recording of crime scenes and therefore the creation of new protocols tested in the field is highly recommended.

Mots clés : forensic archaeology, 3d modelling, crime scene, documentation, 3d survey

Participants :
- Staffordshire University (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 183454.8 €
Projet GammaRayCascades (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2018)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The existence of an intergalactic magnetic field (IGMF) remains elusive and only upper limits on its strength are known from limits on the rotation of polarization angles of radio waves. Its measurement would provide crucial information about large scale structure formation, since the IGMF is thought to act as a seed field for magnetic fields in galaxies and galaxy clusters, how the Universe evolved, and how charged cosmic rays and electromagnetic waves propagate through intergalactic space. Here, I propose a new search for IGMF signatures using observations of a high-energy gamma-ray cascades from distant galaxies. Gamma rays interact with background radiation fields to produce electron-positron pairs. These pairs up-scatter cosmic-microwave photons to gamma-ray energies, initiating the cascade. The IGMF morphology is imprinted on the cascade through a deflection of the pairs in the IGMF. A novel combination of observations with imaging air Cherenkov telescopes and the Fermi Large Area Telescope, using both spectral and spatial information, combined with precise model predictions of the cascade, promise an unprecedented sensitivity for detection of the cascade signal and the IGMF. Strong constraints on the IGMF strength will be possible if no cascade is detected. Furthermore, I will also search for a gamma-ray and neutrino signal from cascades initiated by cosmic rays from active galaxies. This will yield an independent probe of the IGMF and, additionally, constraints on the cosmic-ray acceleration power of such galaxies. As part of this work, I will also make predictions how the future Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) can further improve the detection of or constraints on the IGMF and the cosmic-ray acceleration power of active galaxies. This will result in an optimized observation strategy for the extragalactic survey and the blazar monitoring program, which are both planned with CTA.

Mots clés : intergalactic magnetic fields, cosmic rays, gamma ray propagation

Participants :
- University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (Allemagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 174806.4 €
Projet EXPAND (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2018)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The expansion of farmers and their languages was a key process in shaping cultural geographies across the globe during the late Holocene. Many human expansions in the past are linked to periods of climate change, which would have offered opportunities and constraints for migrations. In lowland South America, the extent of major language families coincides with the expansion of archaeological traditions ~3-2 kyr BP together with the dissemination of polyculture agroforestry. This period was marked by increased precipitation and forest expansion, as documented in paleoecological and paleoclimate records, ultimately suggesting that climate change may have played a role in tropical farmers' diasporas by expanding the areas where polyculture agroforestry could be practised. However, an evaluation of that hypothesis is hampered by the lack of unified archaeological databases, absence of land cover reconstructions for the late Holocene, and poor integration of archaeology and paleoecology in South America. To overcome those drawbacks, this project will integrate continent-wide archaeological and paleoecological datasets through computer modeling architecture to test the role of environmental drivers in late Holocene cultural diasporas. I will compile all available dates, coordinates and cultural information for late Holocene archaeological sites in lowland South America, model vegetation changes from all available paleoecological records, and integrate those datasets using state-of-the-art computational modeling techniques. I will employ agent-based modeling to simulate scenarios of climate-driven human expansions that will be tested based on the empirical archaeological data gathered over the course of the project. By integrating archaeology, paleoecology and computer modeling to address crucial questions about past human migrations, this project will bring lowland South America to the forefront of the debate about climate change and human population dynamics.

Mots clés : south american archaeology, climate change, language expansions, agent based modeling

Participants :
- Pompeu Fabra University (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 160932.48 €
Projet BeBOP (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2016)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The experienced researcher, Dr. Guillermo Albareda, and the host supervisor, Prof. Angel Rubio, aim at developing a new predictive and practical approach that overcomes the difficulties that current methods have to treat the correlated electron-nuclear dynamics in complex systems. Up to now, most of the methods to describe the coupled motion of electrons and nuclei have been based on the Born-Huang expansion that fails to meet the appropriate trade-off between accuracy and efficiency for large systems. Based on the “conditional decomposition” (CD) framework recently introduced by the experienced researcher, the proposed research relies on the premise that the radically different mathematical grounds of the CD approach will lead to a paradigm shift in how ab-initio nonadiabatic molecular dynamics is numerically approached. The program starts with the fundamental method development based on the CD framework, goes through a systematic performance test to reach the desired accuracy/efficiency trade-off, and will be implemented in a computational platform to be applied to study large systems such as artificial light-harvesting complexes.

Mots clés : coupled electron nuclear dynamics, beyond born oppenheimer approximation, time dependent density functional theory, quantum dynamics, quantum trajectories, light harvesting complexes

Participants :
- Max Planck Society (Allemagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 171460.8 €
Projet O6-alkylguanines (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2017)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The exposure of DNA to alkylating agents can produce base adducts such as O6-alkylguanines, that if not repaired, can lead to a variety of effects including toxicity, mutagenicity and cancer. Although exposure may be significant for certain individuals such as workers in the chemical industry and smokers, all individuals are exposed to alkylating agents from dietary components or that derive from reactive intermediates formed endogenously. For example, nitrosation of dietary amines, amino acids and their derivatives can produce reactive alkylating agents that can result in the formation of a variety of DNA base adducts. One such adduct, O6-carboxymethylguanine (O6-CMG) has been directly correlated to dietary levels of red meat, a known risk factor for developing colorectal cancer, the second most common cancer in Europe. This proposal will use novel synthetic oligodeoxyribonucleotide (ODN) and nucleoside standards to develop highly sensitive mass spectrometry-based analytical methods to identify and quantify levels of specific O6-alkylguanine adducts in DNA. This methodology will enable links to be made between exposure and cancer risk, lead to the identification of novel predictive biomarkers and benefit the assessment of human health at both the individual and population level, paving the way for more informative monitoring studies.

Mots clés : dna damage, o6 alkylguanine, alkylation

Participants :
- University of Sheffield (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 195454.8 €
Projet PROTECTNICHE (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2017)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The extinction of species is the most alarming consequence of global biodiversity decline, with potential dramatic effects on our economy and well-being. The current rate of climate change is predicted to further increase extinction risk, hence there is urgent need to anticipate species decline rather than reacting to it. The breadth of a species’ niche - the set of environmental conditions in which the species can persist - is the key ecological trait that allows adaptation to environmental change, but is largely ignored in conservation planning applications. The goal of the PROTECTNICHE project is to disentangle the impacts of humans, climate change, and life history on the climatic niches of terrestrial mammals to inform a conservation strategy for preventing future species declines. This goal incorporates 3 objectives: i) Attribute the global change in past species climatic niches to intrinsic and extrinsic drivers; ii) Based on the models developed in Obj. 1, define a measure of adaptability to climate change for each species; iii) Based on the outcome of Obj. 2, develop a global conservation strategy to maximise the protection of species climatic niches while minimising their exposure to climate change. The project focuses on the world's terrestrial mammals, a data-rich group currently facing significant extinction rates, to develop and theoretically ground a conservation planning approach that can be also transfered to other taxa. Building on my expertise on extinction risk analysis and conservation planning, and the habitat and climatic modelling capabilities of Dr Rondinini and the Global Mammal Assessment lab, this project will define a proactive conservation plan where actions are prioritised to preserve species adaptive potential under global change. This is a research area of primary interest in Europe, given the EC has recognised that business opportunities from investing in biodiversity conservation could be worth US$ 2-6 trillion by 2050.

Mots clés : adaptive potential, biodiversity conservation, climate change, climatic niche, conservation planning, eu 2020 biodiversity strategy, extinction risk, human pressure, threatened species

Participants :
- Sapienza University of Rome (Italie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 180277.2 €
Projet atoGRAPH (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2018)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The extraordinary and ultrafast electro-optical response of graphene nanostructures has enabled order-unity changes in absorption due to the switching on and off of plasmons via electrical gating, thus suggesting application to ultrafast light modulation. Unfortunately, graphene plasmons have so far been observed at mid-infrared and longer wavelengths, therefore limiting their use as optoelectronic devices in the visible and near-infrared (vis-NIR) spectral range. Reaching this energy regime requires an efficient doping of graphene by confining the lateral dimension below 5 nm, which is beyond the state-of-art top-down lithography resolution. Alternatively, this project will use a bottom-up chemical route recently developed by the host organization to synthesize atomically precise, 1nm wide, graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) that can couple laterally to give rise to either nanoporous graphene structures or laterally interconnected GNRs arrays, for efficient gate-doping. The project aims to explore the feasibility of fabricating optoelectronic devices based on the plasmonic properties of atomically precise graphene nanostructures. The nature of the project is highly multidisciplinary, involving a combination of well-developed chemistry, physics, electronics and photonics that will focus at three different levels: chemical synthesis of atomic-size GNRs and characterization, nanostructure transfer and device fabrication, and electro-optical characterization. This proposal promotes both the transfer of knowledge to the host institution and the training of the candidate in new advanced techniques. The proof-of-concept of such device will pave the way for ultra-high speed photodetectors that are capable of handling record data transmission at vis-NIR range, thus providing key solutions for next generation data communications. This project lines up perfectly with the EU strategy, “Graphene Flagship”, in fostering the emergence of foundational breakthroughs in graphene science.

Mots clés : graphene nanoribbons, scanning tunneling microscopy, electronic transport, gate tunable, doping, plasmonics, strong light matter interaction, nanophotonics, photodetector, optical communications

Participants :
- Institut Català de Nanociència i Nanotecnologia (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 172932.48 €
Projet PROBYDE (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

The fast evolution of bacterial pathogens towards antibiotic resistance is estimated by 2050 to be killing 10 million people every year. Consequently, much interest is being directed towards finding ways to curb or even arrest this evolutionary process. Of note, sequencing efforts are revealing that many of the genetic changes that drive resistance evolution are often repeatable. Understanding what drives this repeatability is of foremost importance if we ever want to develop interventions aimed at anticipating and preventing the evolution of undesirable variants. Here, I will aim at advancing our understanding of evolutionary repeatability in several clinically-relevant, drug-resistance enzymes spanning a range of GC compositions. I will use this relevant model system to empirically test recent predictions on the roles of mutation bias and GC content in shaping mutational pathways. To this end, I will conduct high-throughput 'in vitro' Directed Evolution experiments to explore the potential adaptive paths available via single step mutations among the drug-resistance enzymes. Next, I will compare these 'in vitro' predictions with the outcomes of highly-parallel antibiotic adaptation experiments conducted with bacterial strains with strong mutation biases (e.g., mutators) carrying the same panel of enzymes. By producing important insights into some of the key determinants of evolutionary repeatability, PROBYDE aspires to form a knowledge base that may help harness evolution not only in bacterial pathogens, but also in other human-relevant systems such as cancer, crop pests and industrial microbes.

Mots clés : epistasis, mutation bias, evolutionary genetics, experimental evolution, antimicrobial resistance

Participants :
- Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 160932.48 €
Projet HCAPT (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2014)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The fast evolution of printed electronics, with the photovoltaic technology in primis, is requiring the presence of a valid transistor alternative to the traditional one. The realization of a high current roll-to-roll transistor will interconnect all the different technologies so far developed with this low cost and high throughput method. Our aim is to develop a roll-to-roll transistor capable to of modulate modulating the current to levels that where has not been achieved so far. The fabrication of the transistor will be done considering the lowest environmental impact possible, and containing energy consumption with a temperature below 150 °C. This high current (~mA) transistor will be able to support and assist other technologies and will also be the base for logics and sensing application. The optical studies on the organic material will result in a more controllable production process that for the first time will relate polymer crystallinity directly with an optical characterization technique. The realization of such kind of measurements is not trivial, but will give information on polymer nanoscale structures never investigated before. To do so this technique uses femtosecond pulse in subdiffraction-limited area. This will disclose an unprecedented tool to control the polymer morphology as soon as it is deposited, with enormous consequences in performance control and optimization. The realization of samples and the study of real cases will produce important information regarding this new technology and its real life applications. In addition, life-time and stability studies can be performed. Then the objective of minimizing the environmental impact of the technology life time cycle will be more realistic. These kinds of studies are also important to explain science to the society and to give a technology preview to industries.

Mots clés : printed electronics roll to roll transistors organics oxides metal organics standalone devices optics nanostructures energy power heat current crystallinity sustainability morphology flexo electricity

Participants :
- Technical University of Denmark (Danemark) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 212194.8 €
Projet AstroSsearch (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2019)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : SIGNED

The fellowship AstroSsearch addresses open questions related to the abundance of sulfur and metals in the interstellar medium. While some species have been detected in astronomical environments, their abundance and complexity is quite low, thereby preventing a full understanding of the chemistry occurring in these environments. We will attack this problem with a synergic approach exploiting new laboratory microwave spectroscopy developments and radio astronomy observations. The key objectives include the generation of high-resolution rotational spectra of previously undetected sulfur/metal containing compounds and ions by mating broadband (chirped-pulse Fourier transform) microwave spectroscopy techniques with electrical discharge and laser ablation sources. Additionally, a novel discharge source will be developed in which the chemistry can be controlled to reveal likely reaction pathways that produce the observed species. This will allow for the postulation of viable astronomical formation mechanisms. The expected results are: (1) Development of a new controlled reactive chemistry source that can be paired with laser ablation. (2) High-resolution, rotational spectra of complex sulfur and metal containing species leading to their unambiguous identification in interstellar environments and their inclusion in theoretical models. (3) Elucidation of viable reaction pathways in astronomical environments for targeted and detected species and the insertion of these pathways into existing models. These results will facilitate radio astronomy detections, expanding our comprehension of astronomical chemistry. The synergy of laboratory spectroscopy and observational astrophysics will bring together all facets of the multidisciplinary field of astrochemistry, broadening our understanding of the chemistry that is occurring in interstellar and circumstellar environments and shedding light on the chemical complexity of the universe.

Mots clés : astrochemistry, radio astronomical observations, laboratory astrophysics, interstellar molecules, sulfur and metal interstellar chemistry, broadband rotational spectroscopy, transient molecules

Participants :
- University of Valladolid (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 172932.48 €
Projet MALDIP (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2019)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The field of disordered photonics has increased its importance immensely over past decades as it finds widespread application in several fields from biomedical imaging, to solar energy harvesting, paint, pigments, food and cosmetic industry. However, the current development of highly scattering materials is often hindered by lack of ways to quantitatively predict and model their structural morphology and photonic properties. This action aims to characterize disordered photonic structures made of organic materials by analyzing their 3D structures using Gaussian Processes (GP) based machine learning techniques in conjunction with numerical optical simulations. The inherent randomness in the 3D arrangement of disordered photonics, makes them both intuitively and theoretically ideal to be modeled with GP. The novelty of this action consist of using state-of-the art GP method not only analyze 3D structures, but also to reconstruct them from lower dimensional data, like 2D images and spectroscopic data. Moreover by using the quantitative GP descriptors, we are able both generate input models for numerical simulations and using the feedback iteratively update those models to optimize them for high scattering. We expect that the complementary expertise in characterization and computational methods of the Host and the Researcher will produce not only invaluable insights, but also practical tools to characterize, quantify and exhaustively model and optimize complex photonic structures.

Mots clés : machine learning

Participants :
- University of Cambridge (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 212933.76 €