Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-actions-marie-curie-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet MoleSynap (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2024)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Although the rise of artificial intelligence technology greatly benefits our life by improving work productivity, the increasingly high energy consumption required to operate these software programs to cope with huge computational tasks becomes a serious issue. This is mainly due to inefficient data transport between separated memory and computing units (von Neumann bottleneck) in traditional computers. To minimize energy cost while maintaining computing power, this MSCA-PF research project - MoleSynap - aims to design brain-inspired electronic devices. Specifically, MoleSynap will fabricate artificial synapses by emulating biological synapses. These artificial synaptic devices will be designed in three-terminal transistor configuration (synaptic transistors), given their excellent regulation of charge carrier flow during device operation. Current organic polymer-based synaptic transistors suffer from the decreasing long-term device accuracy and high device-to-device variations, mainly due to nonperfect active-layers thin-films prepared by traditional solution-based wet methods. In this regard, MoleSynap will go beyond the current state-of-the-art on two different levels: (1) employ emerging two-dimensional coordination polymers and ionogel electrolytes as active-layer materials for improving synaptic characteristics, and (2) develop all-dry solvent-free thin-film deposition technology to fabricate active-layer thin-films with high precision and consistency. Overall, MoleSynap aims to significantly advance the field in developing organic synaptic devices for low-energy-cost computing. Moreover, MoleSynap will lay the strong foundation for building my own research group, and fulfill my long term scientific goal of bridging basic science (fundamental polymer physics) and applied science (polymer electronics devices) in polymer materials to promote environmental sustainability.

Mots clés : neuromorphic hardware, hardware neural network, organic electrochemical transistor, 2d c mof, ionogel, artificial synapses, high vacuum thin film deposition, ald, mld, icvd

Participants :
- Université de Bari (Italie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 193643.28 €
- Institut de micro-électronique et composants (Belgique) — Partner, associated partner, Recherche, subvention : 0.0 €
Projet NNLPP (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2021)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The project responds to a vital need in the modern European society to put scientific research behind language-related policies and decisions that define the statuses of different languages in the European community. It makes a scientific step towards a better understanding of multilingualism and language acquisition. NNLPP is an integrated study of processing and production which compares the strategies multilingual speakers use across their languages. The project will investigate adult non-balanced multilinguals of 250-300 participants speaking languages that belong to different linguistic families: Norwegian, Russian, Armenian and English. I will carry out a series of studies that will measure processing time and eye movements, and will record speech patterns. NNLPP will provide a well-rounded description of psycholinguistic mechanisms of language processing and production used by a multilingual mind in sentences with code-switching.

Mots clés : non native language processing and production by non balanced multilinguals

Participants :
- Université norvégienne de sciences et de technologie (Norvège) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 226751.04 €
Projet PelCon (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2023)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

The pelagic food web plays an important role in nutrient recycling and the production of food for commercially harvested species, especially in highly productive marine ecosystems. However, processes controlling the structure, function and connectivity of inshore-offshore pelagic food webs in these systems are far from understood, although it is well-known that food supply is a key factor driving these processes. Therefore, a better understanding of nutrient sources and dynamics, as well as trophic connections modulating the pelagic food web in these ecosystems is required to design effective conservation and management strategies in a changing ocean. While analytical techniques to quantify and track nutrient fluxes across the food web were previously lacking, recent advances in compound-specific stable isotope (CSIA) biogeochemistry provide a unique opportunity to assess and quantify trophic linkages between inshore-offshore pelagic food webs. The main aim of my proposal (acronym: PelCon) is to distinguish the input of different sources of production associated with inshore productive and offshore oligotrophic pelagic food webs in Hawai’i (oligotrophic North Pacific Subtropical Gyre) using stable isotopes of carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) in bulk tissues and individual amino acids (i.e. CSIA-AA). I also aim to develop indicators of trophic inshore-offshore connectivity based on stable isotope signatures that can be used to help predict global patterns in horizontal carbon and nitrogen flux in the coastal-ocean system. For this, I will compare the mechanisms coupling coastal-oceanic food webs between Hawai’i Island and a dynamic region in the NE Atlantic Ocean (Galicia, NW Spain) influenced by seasonal upwelling, for which I will apply the same isotopic techniques. Importantly, this proposal will allow me to gain new skills and learn the latest isotopic techniques, further developing my research portfolio, while advancing our knowledge of food web dynamics.

Mots clés : pelagic environment, trophodynamics, habitat connectivity, basal production sources, zooplankton, fish

Participants :
- Université d'Hawaï (Etats-Unis) — Partner, associated partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
- Conseil supérieur de la recherche scientifique (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 261380.64 €
Projet IslandNet (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2023)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Islands hold ca. 20% of the global biodiversity but have suffered disproportionally high extinction rates and many extant species are threatened. The vulnerability of island biodiversity is linked to drivers of global change like habitat degradation, invasive species, and also climate change. The loss of biodiversity is problematic, since it affects crucial ecosystem functions, such as animal-mediated pollination and seed dispersal, and increases the risk of emerging diseases. However, despite their importance, islands remain largely understudied compared to mainland counterparts. Specifically, there is a lack of empirical studies investigating the effects of insularity and environmental factors, such as climate, on the structure of interaction networks and the underlying ecosystem functions. Furthermore, while parasite infections influence population dynamics, their impact on ecosystem functions has been overlooked. IslandNet will take a crucial step forward by analysing the first empirical dataset on bird-mediated ecosystem functions, in combination with data on functional traits and parasite infections across the islands of the East Caribbean. Combining network theory, functional ecology, island biogeography and parasitology, will allow to disentangle effects of insularity, environmental factors, functional diversity and parasite infections on network structure and underlying ecosystem functions across an entire archipelago. By contributing better insight into the mechanisms driving network structure across islands, IslandNet will provide essential knowledge allowing to plan conservation measures to prevent future biodiversity loss. During this fellowship, I will receive crucial training by leading experts in the fields of biotic interactions and island biogeography at outstanding institutes. This experience will pace my way towards establishing my independence as a researcher in the fields of community ecology and global change with a focus on island ecosystems.

Mots clés : islands, island ecology, functional traits, frugivory, seed dispersal, pollination, birds, ecosystem functions

Participants :
- Conseil supérieur de la recherche scientifique (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 165312.96 €
Projet INCITE (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2023)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Transmission spectroscopy (TS) is a technique, which measures the wavelength-dependent radius of a planet as it transits its star. From this, information about the chemical composition of a planet’s atmosphere can be obtained. The observed transmission spectrum is a combination of the planet and its host star. Inhomogeneities caused by spots and faculae present on stellar surfaces cause temporal changes in the observed transmission spectrum, mimicking a planet’s signal. It is crucial to understand the imprints of faculae and spots on TS to mitigate their signals. Modelling of stellar activity is challenging, and interpreting the stellar signal is full of degeneracies. The community is eager to overcome the stellar contamination conundrum, for which INCITE will propose solutions. INCITE’s objective is to build a methodology for stellar activity mitigation by physically modelling stellar activity in contemporaneous multiple-technique observations. As stellar activity models rely on the knowledge of the surface distribution of magnetic features and their respective brightness spectra, INCITE will combine recent efforts in these areas. The only star for which simultaneous observations of both the distribution of spots and faculae as well as multi-technique observations are available is the Sun. Therefore the first step within INCITE is to accurately model Sun-as-star observables. Another star presents itself as in ideal testbed. GJ 1214 is a cool , small, star, for which observations in multi-techniques, together with observations in TS by NASA’s JWST are available. Based on those two stars, stellar activity indicators that will allow for the most accurate mitigation of stellar activity in TS will be identified. Additionally, extensive studies will be conducted on how different configurations of magnetic fields will affect those activity indices and the mitigation in TS. This makes INCITE a proof-of concept study highly anticipated by the community.

Mots clés : exoplanets, stellar atmospheres, stellar activity, solar activity, solar stellar comparison

Participants :
- Conseil supérieur de la recherche scientifique (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 165312.96 €
Projet PhytoBactoEVs (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2022)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Phytopathogenic bacteria are of substantial economic importance, threatening the quantity and quality of food production. Reducing crop losses from disease epidemics caused by bacterial pathogens is critical for the supply of agricultural produce. On the other hand, colonisation of plants with beneficial bacteria can stimulate plant growth by increasing the nutrient uptake by roots or prime plants for enhanced defense against biotic and abiotic stresses, which can help to improve (or bring new approaches to) efforts to reach sustainable agriculture. Cell-to-cell communication, which is ubiquitous in all biological systems, plays a critical role in plant-bacteria interaction. Recently it has been considered that one of the significant ways to achieve cell-to-cell communication is through extracellular vesicles (EVs). These cytosol-containing membrane spheres provide selection, storage, and protection against degradation of enclosed cargoes in a highly dynamic and environmental cue-responsive manner. EVs also offer the opportunity for directed cargo delivery to dedicated recipient cells and serve as a quick adaptation strategy to react to a changing environment [1]. This project proposal aims to shed light on the vesiculation process of phytobacteria and the role of EVs in plant-bacteria interactions. The missing detailed understanding of vesiculation and EVs' properties is a critical gap in our complete knowledge of cell-to-cell communication, especially in plant-bacteria interactions. At its completion, this project will lead to new insights into the crucial tool, cell-to-cell communication, contributing to the virulence of pathogenic phytobacteria and the mechanism for how bacterial symbionts promote plant growth and fitness.

Mots clés : extracellular vesicles phytobacteria pseudomonas proteomics lipidomics transcriptomics nta vesiculation arabidopsis plant immunity

Participants :
- Université de Bohême du Sud (Rép. Tchèque) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 150438.72 €
Projet WallSATisFaction (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2021)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

The plant cell wall (CW) is a crucial defense layer surrounding plants cells. CW composition and structure are directly associated with environmental stresses and biomass production. Cell Wall Integrity (CWI) maintenance is a crucial key player responsible for monitoring and maintaining plant CW composition and structure under biotic and abiotic stresses. Thus, the new knowledge and understanding of the CWI machinery have enormous potential to increase crop production and develop new highly adaptive crop species. The CWI maintenance mechanism involves receptor-like kinases and ion channels in the plasma membrane, which perceive signals arising from CWI impairment and modulate downstream signaling cascades, leading to changes in cytoskeleton organization, phytohormone production (ABA, SA, JA, and ethylene), gene expression, and cell wall composition/structure. I will use my expertise in signaling transduction pathways and combine them with the knowledge and skill used host lab on CWI signaling pathways to determine the mechanism regulating SA responses and downstream factors of plant cells in CWI impairments. Therefore, my project aims to discover transcriptional regulators mediating the response to impairment of primary cell wall integrity and characterize signal transduction elements controlling SA induction and modulating SA-controlled responses. I will share the results with the scientific community and the public using social networks, attending international conferences, and publish research outcomes in a high-impact scientific journal in an open-access format. This project will form the foundation of my future career as a researcher, and the project results can be used to increase crop production and develop new highly adaptive crop species.

Mots clés : salicylic acid, transcription regulators, cell wall, cell wall integrity maintenance, cell wall impairment, arabidopsis thaliana

Participants :
- Université norvégienne de sciences et de technologie (Norvège) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 210911.04 €
Projet VISIBLE (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2021)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Dr. Bell proposes to work with Prof. Andersson at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden, to study VIrus-hoSt Interactions in the BaLtic sEa (VISIBLE). Bacteriophages (bacteria specific viruses) are the most abundant biological entity on the planet, yet we are only beginning to grasp the impact they have upon ecosystem functioning. Using state-of-the-art metagenomics, viromics and bioinformatics, the fellow will uncover novel genomes of virus populations in the Baltic Sea and the prokaryotic hosts they infect. Multiple approaches (abundance, CRISPR spacer matching and homology of auxiliary metabolic genes) will be combined to uncover virus-host dynamics. The metagenomic and viromic dataset has a high temporal resolution spanning a three-year period making it possible to answer fundamental ecological questions: (1) How are the temporal dynamics of viruses related to that of their hosts? (2) Can the co-evolution of viruses and their hosts be detected? (3) Do the function of auxiliary metabolic genes reflect changes in environmental gradients? These questions have major implications for biogeochemical cycling and resource turnover in the marine biosphere, as well as water resource management and predicting ecological responses to climate change. By means of a multidisciplinary approach, the fellow will advance their current research skills in microbial ecology and bioinformatics and gain new skills in virology. The MCSA fellow will join a world-class host institute and world-leading research team in environmental genomics. They will establish new interdisciplinary collaborations with researchers from across Sweden and Europe and develop their communication, management and leadership skills. KTH has been awarded HR Excellence in Research and supports the MCSA Green Charter. KTH provides the ideal environment and infrastructure for the fellow to carry out this research and to develop as a leading independent researcher.

Mots clés : viromics, metagenomics, aquatic microbiology, ecosystem functioning

Participants :
- KTH Institut royal de technologie (Suède) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 222727.68 €
Projet 1-Bit GC-DL (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2023)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : SIGNED

In the framework of distributed learning, to mitigate the negative impact of the stragglers on the training time, the gradient coding (GC) technique has been adopted. On the other hand, to deal with high communication burden in distributed learning, 1-bit gradient vectors can be transmitted instead of real-valued ones. However, the existing distributed learning method based on 1-bit data does not take stragglers into account. In addition, current GC techniques are only designed for the distributed learning scheme where real-valued encoded vectors are transmitted and it is difficult to apply them under the case where 1-bit vectors are transmitted. To overcome the above drawbacks and to reduce the communication overhead and the training time simultaneously, this project aims to propose novel distributed learning methods based on GC with 1-bit data. First, this project will propose a distributed learning method named 1-Bit GC-DL, which develops a 1-bit GC strategy to encode the locally computed gradient vectors of the allocated subsets into 1-bit data. Based on that, the aggregation rule at the central server for the received 1-bit data will be designed, which guarantees that the central server computes an approximated version of the true gradient vector in the presence of a certain number of stragglers to. Second, to further reduce the training time of 1-Bit GC-DL, this project will propose a lazily aggregated distributed learning method based on 1-bit GC, i.e., 1-Bit LA-GC-DL, by combining 1-Bit GC-DL with the lazily aggregated strategy. In 1-Bit LA-GC-DL, only a fraction of the workers participate in local training during each iteration and this project will provide the criterion for selecting the participating workers based on Age of Information. The proposed methods will be compared with other state-of-the-art methods in the context of distributed learning on both simulated and realistic datasets under practical scenarios.

Mots clés : distributed learning, gradient coding, 1 bit data, stragglers, training time, communication overhead

Participants :
- KTH Institut royal de technologie (Suède) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 206887.68 €
Projet EmotionObjectCoding (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2021)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

In our everyday life, we ascribe certain emotional value to some objects. More specifically, we ascribe a valence to some objects, which is the degree to which something can be pleasurable or averse, leading to an emotional response when we interact or remember them. In the act of learning and remembering an object, the brain executes a complex set of operations, integrating multiple sensory inputs (vision, smell, touch, sound, etc.) and the corresponding valence of the object to generate a unique mental representation, used to recognize and distinguish one object from another. This is known as object encoding. There is plenty of evidence linking the activity of the main hubs of emotional information processing (Amygdalar nuclei) and object encoding in the brain (perirhinal cortex), but a precise description of how notions of valence are incorporated during object encoding, have not been investigated, in part due to the technical challenges involved. EmotionObjectCoding will make use of Neuropixel, a powerful and new technology, enabling for the first time, the recording of population-level activity with high temporal resolution. This approach will be complemented with in vitro electrophysiological and optogenetic tools, providing a precise description of the neural circuits involved in the incorporation of valence during object encoding. Taken together, these innovative methods, will provide the groundwork for developing new hypothesis for the role of affective input during object encoding. Furthermore, this project will contribute to create a clearer picture about how our emotional well-being affects other important cognitive processes such as learning and potentially, disorders such as PTSD and Alzheimer’s disease.

Mots clés : perirhinal cortex, basolateral amygdala, neuropixel, object encoding

Participants :
- Université norvégienne de sciences et de technologie (Norvège) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 226751.04 €