Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : GREinGC (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Universe sciences
Entité participante : University of Zurich — Pays : Suisse — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UZH
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1991721.0 €

Substantial advances in cosmology over the past decades have firmly established the standard model of cosmology. However, the physical nature of the early Universe and dark energy (or inflationary cosmology) remains poorly understood. To resolve these issues, a large number of galaxy surveys are planned to measure millions of galaxies in the sky, promising precision measurements of galaxy clustering with enormous statistical power. Despite these advances in observation, the standard theoretical description of galaxy clustering is based on the Newtonian description, inadequate for measuring the relativistic effects from the early Universe and the deviations of modified gravity from general relativity. In recent years, the applicant, for the first time, developed the linear-order general relativistic description of galaxy clustering and showed that the relativistic effect in galaxy clustering is already measurable at a few-sigma level in current surveys like the Sloan survey and significant detections (>10 sigma) are possible in upcoming surveys. This research proposal will aim to use the subtle relativistic effect in galaxy clustering to develop novel probes of inflationary cosmology. In particular, the applicant will 1) formulate the higher-order relativistic description of galaxy clustering, an essential tool for computing the bispectrum, and 2) investigate the unique relativistic signatures (linear-order and higher-order) in galaxy clustering from the early Universe and dark energy to develop novel probes of isolating those signatures and to quantify their detectabilities in future galaxy surveys. Biases in cosmological parameter estimation, if the standard Newtonian description is used, will be quantified. A comprehensive understanding of inflationary cosmology will have far-reaching consequences, shedding light on new physics beyond the standard model.

Mots-clés : galaxy clustering,general relativity
Projet ERC : BRAINCODES (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Human Mind and Its Complexity
Entité participante : University of Zurich — Pays : Suisse — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UZH
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1999991.0 €

Successful social interactions require social decision making, the ability to guide our actions in line with the goals and expectations of the people around us. Disordered social decision making – e.g., associated with criminal activity or psychiatric illnesses – poses significant financial and personal challenges to society. However, the brain mechanisms that enable us to control our social behavior are far from being understood. Here I will take decisive steps towards a causal understanding of these mechanisms by elucidating the role of functional interactions in the brain networks responsible for steering strategic, prosocial, and norm-compliant behavior. I will employ a unique multi-method approach that integrates computational modeling of social decisions with new combinations of multimodal neuroimaging and brain stimulation methods. Using EEG-fMRI, I will first identify spatio-temporal patterns of functional interactions between brain areas that correlate with social decision processes as identified by computational modeling of behavior in different economic games. In combined brain stimulation-fMRI studies, I will then attempt to affect – and in fact enhance – these social decision-making processes by modulating the identified brain network patterns with novel, targeted brain stimulation protocols and measuring the resulting effects on behavior and brain activity. Finally, I will examine whether the identified brain network mechanisms are indeed related to disturbed social decisions in two psychiatric illnesses characterized by maladaptive social behavior (post-traumatic stress disorder and autism spectrum disorder). My proposed work plan will generate a causal understanding of the brain network mechanisms that allow humans to control their social decisions, thereby elucidating a biological basis for individual differences in social behavior and paving the way for new perspectives on how disordered social behavior may be identified and hopefully remedied.

Mots-clés : functional neuroimaging
Projet ERC : EU-rhythmy (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment of Human Diseases
Entité participante : Ministry of Health — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 600000.0 €

Sudden cardiac death (SCD) is a leading cause of death in western countries: coronary artery disease is the major cause of SCD in older subjects while inherited arrhythmogenic diseases are the leading cause of SCD in younger individuals. After 25 years dedicated to research of the molecular bases of heritable arrhythmias, the PI of this proposal now intends to pioneer gene therapy for prevention of SCD: a virtually unexplored field. The development of molecular therapies for rhythm disturbances is a high risk effort however, if successful, it will be highly rewarding. The PI has envisioned an ambitious and comprehensive project to target two severe inherited arrhythmogenic diseases: dominant catecholaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia (CPVT) and Long QT syndrome type 8 (LQT8). The availability of a clinically relevant model is critical to ensure clinical translation of results: the team will exploit an existing CPVT model and will engineer a knock-in pig to model LQT8. The PI and her team will investigate innovative strategies of gene-delivery, gene-silencing and gene-editing to the heart comparing efficacy of different constructs and promoters. The team will also carefully engineer novel gene-therapy approaches to avoid the development of regional inhomogeneity in protein expression that may facilitate proarrhythmic events. Such a comprehensive approach will provide a most valuable core of knowledge on the comparative efficacy of a broad range of molecular strategies on the electrical milieu of the heart. It is expected that these results will not only benefit CPVT and LQT8 but rather they will foster development of gene therapy for other inherited and acquired arrhythmias.

Mots-clés : arrhythmias,sudden cardiac death,inherited diseases,genetics,electrophysiology
Projet ERC : SuPERPORES (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Physical and analytical chemical sciences
Entité participante : Centre national de la recherche scientifique — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CNRS
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1240318.0 €

Supercapacitors are of great interest as energy storage systems because they exhibit very high rates of charge/discharge, long cycle lifes, and they are made of cheap and light materials. These attractive properties arise from the electrostatic nature of the charge storage which results from ion adsorption in the electrode pores. Recently, it was demonstrated that ions can enter pores of sub-nanometer sizes leading to a huge increase of capacitance. This was an important breakthrough as the energy density of supercapacitors, relatively low compared to batteries, is what currently limits their application. The progress towards more powerful supercapacitors is limited by our incomplete understanding of the relation between their performance, in particular their capacitance and charging rate, and the complex structure of the porous carbon electrodes. To make progress we need a better fundamental understanding of the ion transport and electrolyte structure in the pores but we are lacking the experimental and theoretical methods to do so. The aim of SuPERPORES is to carry out a systematic multi-scale simulation study of supercapacitors. The use of combined molecular and mesoscopic simulations will allow us to calculate the capacitive and transport properties of a wide range of systems. Molecular simulations will be used to model ordered three-dimensional porous carbons. This will allow us to vary geometric descriptors, e.g. pore size and ion size, in a systematic way and obtain relevant microscopic information for the subsequent computational screening of porous carbons, achieved through very efficient lattice simulations. We will then be able to formulate design principles for a new, and much improved, generation of supercapacitors. The simulations will also provide other macroscopic properties, e.g. adsorption isotherms and pair distribution functions, which will be used to propose a new method to determine accurately the structure of disordered porous carbons.

Mots-clés : supercapacitors,electrode electrolyte interface,ion transport in confined systems,multi scale simulations,porous carbons,capacitance
Projet ERC : PoLiChroM (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Fundamental constituents of matter
Entité participante : National Research Council — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CNR
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1495000.0 €

Superfluidity and magnetism characterize a wealth of interacting fermion systems encompassing solid-state, nuclear and quark matter environments. From the interplay of these phenomena, the two following issues have been raised: Can superfluid pairing bear a mismatch in the two Fermi surfaces? Can a homogeneous fermion system become ferromagnetic via a zero-ranged interparticle repulsion? Despite decades of interdisciplinary investigations, such questions have not gotten undisputed answers so far. Here, I will experimentally address these problems with a new model system composed of ultracold fermionic Chromium and Lithium atoms with resonant interactions. The two species will mimic electrons of different spins, or quarks of different colours, but exhibiting the high degree of control of an atomic quantum simulator. In particular, two features make this system stand far beyond any other available one: the peculiar Chromium-Lithium mass ratio enables a resonant control of three-body elastic interactions on top of the usual two-body ones, together with an extraordinary suppression of atom recombination into paired states in the regime of strong interspecies repulsion. The first property greatly enhances the observability of elusive polarized superfluid regimes, such as the Fulde-Ferrel-Larkin-Ovchinnikov phase, where pairs condense in nonzero momentum states, and the Sarma or “breached pair” phase, where a homogeneous gapless superfluid coexists with unbound particles. The second makes such mixture a prime platform for the quantum simulation of Stoner’s model for itinerant ferromagnetism, whose study has been denied in nowadays experiments, where pairing instability plagues the formation of sizeable magnetic domains. I will use high-resolution imaging of the system and state-of-the-art spectroscopy schemes for disclosing such exotic phases via a thorough investigation of the phase diagrams of Fermi-Fermi mixtures with attractive or repulsive interactions.

Mots-clés : few body physics
Projet ERC : KETJU (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Universe sciences
Entité participante : University of Helsinki — Pays : Finlande — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UH
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1953569.0 €

Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) with masses in the range ~10^6-10^10 M⊙ are found at the centres of all massive galaxies in the Local Universe. In the ΛCDM picture of structure formation galaxies grow bottom-up through mergers and gas accretion, leading to multiple SMBHs in the same stellar system. Current simulation codes are unable to resolve in a single simulation the full SMBH merging process, which involves dynamical friction, three-body interactions and finally gravitational wave (GW) emission. KETJU will provide a significant breakthrough in SMBH research by following for the first time accurately global galactic-scale dynamical and gaseous astrophysical processes, while simultaneously solving the dynamics of SMBHs, SMBH binaries and surrounding stellar systems at sub-parsec scales. Our code KETJU (the word for 'chain' in Finnish) is built on the GADGET-3 code and it includes regions around every SMBH in which the dynamics of SMBHs and stellar particles is modelled using a non-softened Post-Newtonian algorithmic chain regularisation technique. The remaining simulation particles far from the SMBHs are evolved using softened GADGET-3. Using KETJU we can study at unprecedented accuracy the dynamics of SMBHs to separations of ~10 Schwarzschild radii, the formation of cores in massive galaxies, the formation of nuclear stellar clusters and finally provide a realistic prediction for the amplitude and frequency distribution of the cosmological gravitational wave background. The UH theoretical extragalactic team is ideally suited for this project, as it has an unusually versatile background in modelling the dynamics, feedback and merging of SMBHs. KETJU is also particularly timely, as the spectacular direct detection of GWs in 2016 is paving the way for a new era in gravitational wave astronomy. Future space-borne GW observatories, such as the European Space Agency's LISA, require accurate global GW predictions in order to fully realise their science goals.
Projet ERC : CellStructure (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Condensed matter physics
Entité participante : University of Vienna — Pays : Autriche — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : Univie
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 143750.0 €

Supra-molecular protein machineries control diverse cellular processes. Knowing their structural organization is crucial for understanding their function. As classical structural biology techniques are limited in studying such assemblies in their natural cellular environment, there is a critical methodological gap inhibiting a direct link between structure and function. Consequently, the structural intermediates underlying a full activity cycle of a large multi-protein complex have been impossible to visualize. Recent advances in fluorescence microscopy, in particular the development of groundbreaking superresolution microscopy (SRM) methods, can now help bridge this gap. With this interdisciplinary proposal, my group will develop unique and innovative optical, biological and computational imaging technologies to determine the structural organization of multi-protein assemblies in their functional cellular context. We will reach this goal by developing a method to robustly measure the precise 3D arrangements of proteins in supra-molecular assemblies in situ with nanometer isotropic resolution based on supercritical-angle detection and by measuring their absolute stoichiometries with engineered counting standards. We will also develop new data analysis tools to statistically analyze such data, taking into account the functional cellular context measured with correlative superresolution and electron microscopy, multi-color SRM and molecular biology tools. We will apply these new methods to address key questions on endocytosis, a fundamental membrane trafficking process. Our aim is to determine a time-resolved 3D superresolution localization map of the yeast endocytic proteins during the major functional transitions and to integrate these data into a mechanistic model of endocytosis. Importantly, the methods we develop here can be applied to many other large protein-based machines, and thus have the potential to have high impact in other key areas of cell biology.

Mots-clés : superresolution microscopy,endocytosis
Projet ERC : CellStructure (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Condensed matter physics
Entité participante : European Molecular Biology Laboratory — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : EMBL
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1542719.38 €

Supra-molecular protein machineries control diverse cellular processes. Knowing their structural organization is crucial for understanding their function. As classical structural biology techniques are limited in studying such assemblies in their natural cellular environment, there is a critical methodological gap inhibiting a direct link between structure and function. Consequently, the structural intermediates underlying a full activity cycle of a large multi-protein complex have been impossible to visualize. Recent advances in fluorescence microscopy, in particular the development of groundbreaking superresolution microscopy (SRM) methods, can now help bridge this gap. With this interdisciplinary proposal, my group will develop unique and innovative optical, biological and computational imaging technologies to determine the structural organization of multi-protein assemblies in their functional cellular context. We will reach this goal by developing a method to robustly measure the precise 3D arrangements of proteins in supra-molecular assemblies in situ with nanometer isotropic resolution based on supercritical-angle detection and by measuring their absolute stoichiometries with engineered counting standards. We will also develop new data analysis tools to statistically analyze such data, taking into account the functional cellular context measured with correlative superresolution and electron microscopy, multi-color SRM and molecular biology tools. We will apply these new methods to address key questions on endocytosis, a fundamental membrane trafficking process. Our aim is to determine a time-resolved 3D superresolution localization map of the yeast endocytic proteins during the major functional transitions and to integrate these data into a mechanistic model of endocytosis. Importantly, the methods we develop here can be applied to many other large protein-based machines, and thus have the potential to have high impact in other key areas of cell biology.

Mots-clés : superresolution microscopy,endocytosis
Projet ERC : DarkMix (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Earth system science
Entité participante : University of Bayreuth — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1898103.5 €

Surface meteorology impacts the abundance and quality of life on Earth through the transfer and mixing of light, heat, water, CO2, and other substances controlling the resources for humans, plants, and animals. However, current theories and models fail when airflows and turbulence are weak during calm nights leaving weather and climate forecasts uncertain. This ‘dark side’ occupies substantial fractions of time and our landscape, its physics are largely unknown, and has eluded proper experimental investigation. DarkMix creates technological and theoretical innovations to observe and explain transport and mixing in the weak-wind boundary layer. Its ambitious goal is a radically new framework incorporating unexplored mechanisms such as submeso-scale motions, flow instationarities, and directional shear to effect a quantum leap in understanding the air-plant-soil exchange. DarkMix will build the ground-breaking first-ever fiber-optic distributed temperature sensing harp to fully resolve the 3-dimensional flow and air temperature fields and enable unprecedented computation of eddy covariance fluxes at scales of seconds over 4 orders of magnitude (deci- to hundreds of meters). Both key innovations bear significant risks of technical and fundamental nature, which are mitigated by pursuing alternatives. Measurements will inform cutting-edge large eddy simulations to test hypotheses. The interdisciplinary dimension takes DarkMix to a unique set of weak-wind sites including a valley-bottom grassland, a forest in complex terrain, and a city to investigate topographic effects, the forest carbon cycle, and the urban heat island. DarkMix will open a new window for surface meteorology and its links to air quality, biogeochemistry, and climate change by giving physically meaningful and societally relevant answers to profound questions such as the exchange of greenhouse gases, hazards from ground fog, urban pollution, and agricultural losses through extreme cold air.

Mots-clés : atmospheric turbulence,distributed temperature sensing,surface layer,dispersion,diffusion,forest and urban climate change
Projet ERC : MAT_STOCKS (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Institutions, Governance and Legal Systems
Entité participante : University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna — Pays : Autriche — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : BOKU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1954311.0 €

Sustainability transformations imply fundamental changes in the societal use of biophysical resources. Current socioeconomic metabolism research traces flows of energy, materials or substances to capture resource use: input of raw materials or energy, their fate in production and consumption, and the discharge of wastes and emissions. This approach has yielded important insights into eco-efficiency and long-term drivers of resource use. But due to its focus on flows, socio-metabolic research has not yet incorporated material stocks or their services, thereby not fully realizing its analytic potential. MAT_STOCKS addresses this gap by developing a consistent typology, indicators and databases of material stocks and their services, building upon economy-wide material flow analysis. It will create a comprehensive, global, national-level, validated material stocks and services database as well as maps of material stocks from remote-sensing data. This will allow analyzing the stock/flow/service nexus and underpin highly innovative indicators of eco-efficiency overcoming limitations of current approaches which mainly relate resource use or emissions to population and GDP. New insights on stock/flow/service relations, the relevance of spatial patterns and options for decoupling will be used to create a dynamic model to assess option spaces for transformations towards sustainable metabolism. MAT_STOCKS will identify barriers and leverage points for future sustainability transformations and the SDGs, and elucidate their socio-ecological and political implications. Our preliminary analyses suggest that unravelling the stock/flow/service nexus provides a crucial missing link in socio-metabolic research because it explains why, how and where patterns of material and energy use change or remain locked-in. Thereby, important analytical insights will be introduced into the largely normative and local discourses on the transformation towards a sustainable society.

Mots-clés : socioeconomic metabolism,social ecology,material flow analysis,energy flow analysis