Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : ConnectToBrain (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : University of Chieti-Pescara — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2986625.0 €

ConnectToBrain will introduce whole-brain multi-locus transcranial magnetic stimulation (mTMS), in which the brain-stimulating electric-field location, direction, magnitude and timing are controlled electronically based on real-time high-density electroencephalography (hdEEG) information of activity and connectivity in brain networks. The final mTMS apparatus will consist of 50 coils. Superpositions of electric fields produced by the different overlapping coils allow spatiotemporally millimeter- and millisecond-precise stimulus sequences to arbitrary cortical sites without physical movements of the coil set. Spatial targeting of mTMS will be further improved by measuring individual brain conductivity distributions with ultra-low-field MRI. The proposed hdEEG methodology uses a brain–computer interface (BCI) and a computer–brain interface (CBI) in a closed, algorithmically-controlled loop. BCI receives real-time information about brain activity and connectivity from hdEEG, while CBI adapts mTMS to drive brain activity and connectivity into desired directions. ConnectToBrain will allow unprecedented tracking of dynamic changes and reorganization of brain networks in real-time, and network-targeted closed-loop stimulation. This radically novel technology will cause a paradigm shift from current open-loop practice that is only moderately effective in therapy. We will apply ConnectToBrain to reach new levels of efficacy of therapeutic applications. Patients after stroke and with Alzheimer’s disease will be tested and treated as models of network disorders. Our high-risk, high-gain endeavor will reach the ambitious goals only through the Synergy of the 3 PIs, world leaders in their complementary areas of expertise (instrumentation, algorithms, translation). If the project succeeds, we expect the value of societal, health and industrial benefits in Europe to exceed €1 billion annually, not to mention the immense value of alleviating human suffering from brain disorders.

Mots-clés : transcranial magnetic stimulation,closed loop stimulation,brain connectivity,brain networks,network diseases,therapy,stroke
Projet ERC : NBEB-SSP (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Mathematics
Entité participante : University of Turin — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UNITO
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 510430.0 €

Consider a population of individuals belonging to different species with unknown proportions. Given an initial (observable) random sample from the population, how do we estimate the number of species in the population, or the probability of discovering a new species in one additional sample, or the number of hitherto unseen species that would be observed in additional unobservable samples? These are archetypal examples of a broad class of statistical problems referred to as species sampling problems (SSP), namely: statistical problems in which the objects of inference are functionals involving the unknown species proportions and/or the species frequency counts induced by observable and unobservable samples from the population. SSPs first appeared in ecology, and their importance has grown considerably in the recent years driven by challenging applications in a wide range of leading scientific disciplines, e.g., biosciences and physical sciences, engineering sciences, machine learning, theoretical computer science and information theory, etc. The objective of this project is the introduction and a thorough investigation of new nonparametric Bayes and empirical Bayes methods for SSPs. The proposed advances will include: i) addressing challenging methodological open problems in classical SSPs under the nonparametric empirical Bayes framework, which is arguably the most developed (currently most implemented by practitioners) framework do deal with classical SSPs; fully exploiting and developing the potential of tools from mathematical analysis, combinatorial probability and Bayesian nonparametric statistics to set forth a coherent modern approach to classical SSPs, and then investigating the interplay between this approach and its empirical counterpart; extending the scope of the above studies to more challenging SSPs, and classes of generalized SSPs, that have emerged recently in the fields of biosciences and physical sciences, machine learning and information theory.

Mots-clés : bayesian nonparametrics,empirical bayes,species sampling problems,uncertainty quantification,bayesian asymptotics,reinforcement learning,feature sampling problems,differential privacy
Projet ERC : MICROGLIA-CIRCUIT (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Neuroscience and Disorders of the Nervous System
Entité participante : Institute of Science and Technology Austria — Pays : Autriche — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : ISTA
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1500000.0 €

Constructing a neuronal circuit requires a firework of developmental events: First, the desired cell types have to be generated and wired correctly. Random propagating burst of action potentials among neighboring cells are shaping the functional maturation of these cell types, which later will be activity-dependent refined. Microglia are exposed to this environment from the beginning and show throughout development a morphological “activated”, phagocytic state. However, microglia have been proven to be involved in synapse refinement, which leads to the question how do microglia know when to alter neuronal circuit elements during development without inducing circuit malfunction? This is a fundamental question because the microglia activation state during development is intriguingly similar to the activation state in neurodegenerative diseases. To address this question, I use the retina as a model and propose the following three aims: First, we will reveal how the functional and gene regulatory network of microglia are altered when they are exposed to the neuronal activity-dependent environment and identify neuronal-imposed developmental checkpoints. We will study whether alteration of microglia function in this system will impact circuit formation and function. Second, we will examine microglia dynamics upon sequential removal of neuronal cell types in disease conditions and investigate whether functional restoration of cell types using optogenetic techniques resets microglia function. Third, we will establish the role of healthy and diseased microglia in human retinal circuit formation by reprogramming microglia and 3D-retinoids from healthy and diseased human iPS cells. I predict that my findings provide crucial insights into the functional impact of microglia upon both normal development and function, as well as how their actions may lead to disease phenotypes in situations of neurodegenerative diseases.

Mots-clés : microglia neuron interaction,neuronal circuit development,transcriptional network,microglial dynamics,retina,disease,human ips cells
Projet ERC : BLINDSPOT (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Institutions, Governance and Legal Systems
Entité participante : University of Bologna — Pays : Italie — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : UNIBO
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 237331.25 €

Contemporary organizations face three interrelated, but analytically distinguishable, challenges. First, they should be alert to mistakes that could be catastrophic. Second, they need to allocate attention, especially to correct past mistakes and to make accurate predictions about future developments. Third, they should be innovative, able to stand out from existing categories while being recognized as outstanding. This project investigates these cognitive challenges with the aim of developing a comprehensive sociological approach to study the social properties of cognition. Research on error detection, attention allocation, and recognizant innovation will be conducted in three distinct settings strategically chosen so the scale and complexity of the performance challenges increases across the cases. The research question that cuts across the socio-cognitive challenges asks whether and how diversity contributes to performance. 1) We first test whether social context, understood at the most basic level as the composition of a small collectivity, affects the cognitive activity of pricing. To do so, I use experimental market methods to test whether ethnic and gender diversity deflate price bubbles by disrupting herding behaviour. 2) The second study tests how the social structure of attention affects valuation. The activities involve error correction and accuracy of prediction in estimates by securities analysts; the method is two-mode network analysis; and the timing, intensity, and diversity of attention networks are the effects to be tested. 3) Whereas my first two tests examine relations among competitors, my third examines relations within and across collaborative teams. In studying the network properties of creativity, the challenge is recognizant innovation, the activity involves recording sessions in the field of music, the method is cultural network analysis, and the effects to be tested are the combined effects of stylistic diversity and social structure.

Mots-clés : network analysis,cognitive diversity,observation theory,attention networks,team assembly,innovation,organizations,economic sociology,sociology of finance
Projet ERC : PoetryDA (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Cultures and cultural production
Entité participante : Universität Hamburg — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UHH
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2497162.0 €

Contemporary performative, musical and audiovisual poetry is opening up access to a genre that has frequently been considered abstract and elitist. Sophisticated ‘book poetry’ is being enhanced by popular formats and vice versa. Poetry is also gaining new functions, creating communities characterized by physical or virtual co-presence. Popular poetry formats and online practices promote the self-staging of the poet. Poetry may also serve as a tool for political activism, the expression of opinions and the playful negotiation of transculturality and multilingualism. This project is situated between literary, cultural and interart studies. It will develop tools to analyze to-day’s multifaceted poetry formats, ranging from pop culture to works of ‘high’ art, by scrutinizing their forms and sites of presentation and performance, ranging from the stage to social media, from the written page to the urban space. It will answer the following questions: What factors have contributed to poetry’s current popularity? What is the best way to systemize its sub-genres? What new methods and theories are required to analyze them? How do entertainment and ‘high’ culture oppose one another, interact or mix? Which are the functions (aesthetic, cultural, social, political) of these new forms and modes of presentation? Research will be divided in three main areas, focusing on (1) poetry and performance, (2) poetry and music, and (3) poetry and visual culture. An interdisciplinary team comprising scholars from the fields of lit-erary studies, media and film studies, performance studies, sound studies, speech science and visual culture studies will work together to map this field. By writing a poetics of new forms, this project will be the first to study the great diversity, medial spectrum and dissemination of contemporary poetry. Its results will modify and extend the definition of poetry, changing the way that scholars, poets and the general public view this literary genre.

Mots-clés : contemporary poetry,literary,cultural and interart studies,digital age
Projet ERC : TSuNAMI (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Physical and analytical chemical sciences
Entité participante : Czech Academy of Sciences — Pays : Rép. Tchèque — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : AVČR;CAS
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 485750.0 €

Control over electrons in molecules and periodic solids can be reached via manipulation of their internal quantum degrees of freedom. The most prominent and exploited case is the electronic spin accommodated in standalone spin units composed of 1 – 10^5 of spins. A challenging alternative to the spin is the binary quantum degree of freedom, termed pseudospin existing e.g. in two-dimensional semiconductors. The aim of the proposed research is to build prototypes of trans-spin nano-architectures composed of at least two divergent spin entities, the TSuNAMIes. The spin entities of interest correspond to single atomic spin embedded in spin crossover complexes (SCO), molecular spin of molecular magnets (SMM), superspins of single-domain magnetic nanoparticles (SuperS) and pseudospins in two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides (PseudoS). Ultimate goal of the project is to identify a profit from trans-spin cooperation between the different spin entities coexisting in a single TSuNAMI. Influence of external static and alternating magnetic fields on the elementary spin state, unit cell magnetic structure, long-range magnetic order, mesoscopic spin order, spin relaxations and pseudospin state mirrored in essential fingerprints of the spin units and their ensembles will be explored using macroscopic and microscopic in situ and ex situ probes, including Raman and Mössbauer spectroscopies in magnetic field. Within the proposed high-risk/high-gain trans-spin strategy, we thus expect: 1. Enhancement of magnetic anisotropy in SMM-SuperS with enormous impact on cancer therapy using magnetic fluid hyperthermia, 2. Control over SCO via coupling to giant classical spin giving rise to miniature ‘on-particle’ sensors, 3. Mutual visualization of electronic states in SCO-PseudoS pushing frontiers of nowadays pseudospintronics, and 4. Control over electronic states with nanometer resolution in SuperS-PseudoS giving rise to novel functionalization strategies of graphene successor.

Mots-clés : spin cooperation,spin crossover,molecular magnet,superspin,pseudospin,magnetic nanoparticle,two dimensional materials,spectroscopies in magnetic field,quantum computing,hyperthermia
Projet ERC : SUPERCOOL (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and processes engineering
Entité participante : University of Ljubljana — Pays : Slovénie — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UL
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1359375.0 €

Cooling, refrigeration and air-conditioning are crucial for our modern society. In the last decade, the global demands for cooling are growing exponentially. The standard refrigeration technology, based on vapour compression, is old, inefficient and environmentally harmful. In the SUPERCOOL project we will exploit the potential of elastocaloric cooling, probably the most promising solid-state refrigeration technology, which utilizes the latent heat associated with the martensitic transformation in superelastic shape-memory alloys. We have already demonstrated a novel concept of utilizing the elastocaloric effect (eCE) by introducing a superelastic porous structure in an elastocaloric regenerative thermodynamic cycle. Our preliminary results, recently published in Nature Energy, show the tremendous potential of such a system. However, two fundamental challenges remain. First, we need to create a geometry of the superelastic porous structure (elastocaloric regenerator) to ensure sufficient fatigue life, a large eCE and rapid heat transfer. Second, we must have a driver mechanism that can effectively utilize the work released during the unloading of the elastocaloric regenerator. To succeed I am proposing a unique approach to design advanced elastocaloric regenerators with complex structures together with a driver mechanism with the force-recovery principle. We will employ a systematic characterization and bottom-up linking of all three crucial aspects of the elastocaloric regenerator, i.e., the thermo-hydraulic properties, the stability and the structural fatigue, together with a new solution for force recovery in effective drivers. Based on these theoretical, numerical and experimental results we will combine both key elements of our novel elastocaloric concept into a prototype device, which could be the first major breakthrough in cooling technologies for 100 years, providing greater efficiency and reduced levels of pollution, by applying a solid-state refrigerant.

Mots-clés : elastocaloric,solid state cooling,shape memory materials,refrigeration
Projet ERC : COOPERATIVE PARTNER (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Environmental Biology, Ecology and Evolution
Entité participante : University of Porto — Pays : Portugal — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 305997.18 €

Cooperation represents an evolutionary puzzle because natural sCooperation poses an evolutionary problem because natural selection is thought to favour cheaters over co-operators. However, theory and studies in humans show us that co-operators are preferred over cheaters as social and sexual partners. Partner choice may therefore provide a powerful explanation for the evolution and stability of cooperation, alongside kin selection and self-serving benefits, but we lack an understanding of its importance in natural systems. Recent studies showing that animals have a preference for associating with more cooperative individuals are promising but were mostly conducted in artificial captive conditions, making the evolutionary implications of partner choice hard to assess. Manipulating cooperation in the wild to test the fitness consequences of partner choice is the leap that is required to understand whether or not partner choice provides an evolutionary explanation for cooperation. I will pursue this goal using a long-term study that I established on a highly cooperative wild bird, the sociable weaver Philetairus socius. New methodological developments now allow us to conduct large-scale experiments in the wild, and detailed tracking of individual for several years will allow us to quantify the fitness consequences of choice. Specifically, here I will: i) use a new conceptual framework to test whether cooperation is repeatable (a pre-requirement for partner choice); ii) use state-of-the-art technology to manipulate cooperative behaviour and measure the resulting patterns of social and sexual partner choice; iii) use physiological measures and lifetime reproductive success to examine the fitness benefits arising from partner choice and the underlying mechanisms for both co-operators and the individuals that associate with them. Ultimately, the project will provide a novel and robust evaluation of the roles of social and sexual selection for the evolution of cooperation.

Mots-clés : cooperation,partner choice,sociality,sexual selection,social selection,signalling,individual fitness
Projet ERC : RESSPICAC (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Condensed matter physics
Entité participante : Imperial College London — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499433.0 €

Copying of information-bearing polymer templates is vital to life. The central dogma of molecular biology describes how a sequence of nucleotides in DNA is copied into a sequence of nucleotides in a newly-assembled RNA polymer, and then into a sequence of amino acids in a protein. These processes involve sophisticated machinery in extant organisms, but even the ribosome is bound by the same physical principles as simpler systems that must have operated in early life. Despite the fundamental importance of copying, and its potential for the engineering of complex molecular systems, we do not understand these basic principles that enable accurate and reliable copies to be made of polymer templates, and cannot build minimal synthetic copying systems. I propose to explore minimal models of copying, leveraging recent advances in the thermodynamics of small, fluctuating systems and the thermodynamics of information processing, to identify these principles. I will translate this insight, via detailed molecular simulation and experimental characterisation of novel reaction motifs, into the construction of minimal synthetic copying systems. I will construct these systems from non-biological synthetic DNA. The project will provide insight into analogous processes in living organisms, and shed light on primitive living systems. It will also lay the groundwork for engineering synthetic systems with key cell-like functionalities, providing a mechanism for the production of complex assemblies that is fundamentally distinct from traditional self-assembly. Theory and simulation will drive the experiments, making rational design of systems possible whilst providing insight into the fundamental thermodynamics of information processing and computation, and the biophysics of novel nucleic acid interactions. Indeed, designing and building concrete molecular systems based on fundamental theory will enhance our understanding of the theories themselves.

Mots-clés : dna nanotechnology,molecular simulation