Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : POSEIDON (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Materials Engineering
Entité participante : Centre national de la recherche scientifique — Pays : France — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : CNRS
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 815926.68 €

The growing interest in marine renewable energy and ocean-related human activities are the main causes of an alarming increase of the noise level in the oceans and seas. Nevertheless, the performance of underwater noise mitigation systems has since long been (and still is) limited by the fact that dissipation in linear systems is inherently poor at the sub-wavelength scale. Consequently, a viable solution to attenuate underwater waves over low, broadband, and multiple frequencies does not exist, yet. POSEIDON aims to tackle the intrinsic reasons for such a scientific / technological delay and declares an ambitious goal: to develop a new class of meta-screens allowing zero-transmission / zero-radiation over low and broadband frequencies exploiting rather than avoiding complexities stemming from heavy-fluid/structure interaction and exhibiting practical structural requirements, such as being compact, lightweight, and efficient under hydrostatic pressure. POSEIDON will take the risk of exploring two unconventional and ground-breaking approaches in the challenging context of extremely sub-wavelength underwater acoustics to design a new class of metamaterials allowing unprecedented low and broadband wave reflectivity and absorption: 1) anti-auxetic underwater metamaterials, exploring the intimate relationship between the micro-structure and the macroscopic vibrational properties of a multi-scale metamaterial immersed in a heavy-fluid and exhibiting Poisson's ratios > 0.5. 2) topologically protected and impedance adapted underwater metamaterials, assigning crystalline properties to non-crystalline materials by breaking precise classes of symmetries over multiple length scales. Both approaches are supported by the innovative assumption that (3) underwater wave control through metamaterials be already exploited by Nature. If successful, POSEIDON will fill the gap in the knowledge of underwater acoustics and significantly advance the frontiers of bottom-up material design.

Mots-clés : elastic metamaterials phononic crystals underwater acoustics bio inspiration topological protection heavy fluid structure interaction anti auxetic materials multi scale architecture sub wavelength wave attenuation
Projet ERC : CRYPTOPROOF (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Computer Science and Informatics
Entité participante : Université Bar-Ilan — Pays : Israël — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : BIU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1498819.0 €

A proof system allows a power prover to convince a weak party (the verifier) of the validity of large computations. Proof systems are a powerful and versatile tool that is central to complexity theory and cryptography. Since their introduction, they have led to breakthroughs such as the celebrated PCP theorem, zero-knowledge proofs, hardness of approximation, and more. The rise of cloud computing, lockchain technologies, and distributed computing have created a vast demand for practical implementations. Cryptographic proofs leverage the use of cryptographic primitives to gain efficiency benefits including succinct proofs with fast proving and verifying time, suitable for practical implementations. These days, cryptographic proof systems maintain the integrity of blockchain networks, securing trillions of dollars in transactions. The goal of the CRYPTOPROOF project is to advance the efficiency of crytographic proof systems: 1. High-soundness: For oracle proofs, the query complexity of the verifier is the main bottleneck towards succinctness. Obtaining proof systems with polynomially small error and constant query complexity would resolve the four-decades-old sliding-scale conjecture and would have significant practical implications. 2. Improving the compilation efficiency: cryptographic proof systems are usually obtained by compiling a proof system with several cryptographic primitives which yields crucial properties such as noninteractivity and succinctness that are required for most applications. 3. Limitations: limitations of proof systems and cryptographic proof systems are a scarce resource. They build the boundaries of possibilities and guide us to new constructions. Beyond the above, the end goal of the CRYPTOPROOF project is to design and implement a new cryptographic proof system with efficiency measures that surpasses the current state-of-the-art.

Mots-clés : proof systems,interactive proofs,zero knowledge
Projet ERC : EnaDisNan (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Synthetic Chemistry and Materials
Entité participante : Université Bar-Ilan — Pays : Israël — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : BIU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1500000.0 €

In many scientific disciplines structural symmetry considerations are key. Specifically, mechanisms by which symmetry translates from atomic and molecular building blocks to crystal structures and shapes attract a great deal of attention. A fascinating aspect of this is related to chirality. Louis Pasteur’s monumental work, reported in 1848, on formation of chiral shapes in crystals made from chiral molecules, led to an intuition that chiral building blocks naturally lead to chiral shapes in crystals. Yet, after countless observations ever since of crystals with chiral shapes, mechanisms of their formation are understood to be often more complex and elusive than first imagined. In work proposed here, nanocrystals will serve as convenient model systems for studies of the interplay between crystallization and chiral shape formation. They are beneficial for this purpose as they can mimic “embryonic” stages of crystal growth, exhibiting structural details that can be retrieved at remarkable resolution, that are often hidden in macroscopic crystals. Specifically, I will focus on a universal mechanism by which crystals grow at low concentrations of building blocks, assisted by a common type of imperfections, namely, screw dislocations. I will tackle key unresolved questions on the interplay between chirality, screw dislocations and crystallization. First, how does screw-dislocation-mediated growth proceed in the presence of chiral additives that can bind to growing crystals, and how do these dislocations even come to be? Second, how general is this mechanism, and how often was it overlooked throughout history? The results obtained in this work, on the one hand, will lead to a general design principle to control nano-scale chirality in many inorganic materials, beneficial for novel applications. On the other hand, they have the potential to elucidate a missing piece of crystal growth theory and lead to a paradigm shift in our understanding of shape chirality in crystals.

Mots-clés : nanoscale chirality crystal growth mechanisms imperfections in crystals advanced electron microscopy,screw dislocations
Projet ERC : EmpiriCon (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Institutions, Governance and Legal Systems
Entité participante : Université hébraïque de Jérusalem — Pays : Israël — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : HUJI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1500000.0 €

Constitutional law worldwide suffers from an empirical deficit: although evidence is needed to apply the law to concrete conflicts, constitutional analysis is dominated by high-level value judgments and pays little attention to empirical evidence. Unlike other fields of law, there are almost no empirical studies regarding constitutional controversies, and most courts, legislatures, and executives have no adequate procedures for establishing facts or reviewing evidence in constitutional matters. The empirical deficit of constitutional law has detrimental consequences. It generates unpersuasive decisions; brings about inadvertent societal consequences; breeds accusations that constitutional decisions are subjective and biased; and lets unvalidated facts influence decisions in the absence of proper procedural safeguards. EmpiriCon will develop a new approach that offers to rejuvenate constitutional law as an evidence-based field of law. Based on a comprehensive theoretical analysis of the empirical gaps in constitutional law (WP1), six multi-method empirical studies of key constitutional gaps (WP2), and eight survey experiments that examine the implications of rigorous fact-finding for public trust in constitutional decision making (WP3), I will develop a new theoretical and methodological approach (WP4), showing that empirical constitutional law is not only theoretically justified, but also methodologically feasible and concretely valuable. This approach will ground constitutional reasoning in transparent methodology, improve the quality of constitutional decisions, and may even increase public trust. Simultaneously, the shift to empiricism involves risks, such as data manipulation, and has inherent limitations. I will incorporate the limitations, map out the risks, and propose ways to tackle them. If successful, the project will transform constitutional law, with far reaching implications for scholars, legislatures, executives, courts, and litigants.

Mots-clés : empirical legal studies,constitutional law
Projet ERC : CurveArithmetic (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Mathematics
Entité participante : Université hébraïque de Jérusalem — Pays : Israël — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : HUJI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1500000.0 €

The study of the arithmetic of curves is as old as mathematics itself and takes on many forms. In some cases, such as Fermat's Last Theorem or Mazur's torsion theorem, one tries to prove that a sequence of curves with growing genus has no interesting rational points. In other cases, such as the study of rational points in families of elliptic curves, there is no way to classify all solutions, but one tries to understand what is happening on average. A third approach aims to link the existence of rational points on a given curve to the preponderance of points on the curve modulo larger and larger prime numbers. This is the idea behind the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture, and its generalization, the Beilinson-Bloch conjecture. The proposed research makes progress in each of the three paradigms above. In corresponding order, we propose a Mazur-type theorem for a family of unitary Shimura curves, by exploiting the Jacquet-Langlands correspondence and a connection with Prym varieties. A special case of this result would give a classification of torsion points in a family of genus three bielliptic Jacobians. Second, we propose an approach to the Poonen-Rains heuristics for elliptic curves by combining twisting methods with Bhargava's geometry-of-numbers methods for universal families. Using similar methods, we aim to show that Hilbert's tenth problem has a negative answer over every number field. Third, we study certain instances of the Beilinson-Bloch conjecture for the degree 3 motive of the Jacobian of a curve with complex multiplication. The strategy involves the construction of an Euler system composed of CM Ceresa cycles. Related work will explore torsion and infinite generation phenomena for Ceresa cycles, as well.

Mots-clés : elliptic curves,curves,abelian varieties,rational points,jacobians,shimura varieties,algebraic cycles
Projet ERC : MCFBeyondAndApp (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Mathematics
Entité participante : Université hébraïque de Jérusalem — Pays : Israël — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : HUJI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499138.0 €

Geometric flows as a mean to attack problems in topology, geometry and physics, had been demonstrated to be an extremely powerful tool. The most successful such flow to date is the Ricci flow (RF), which was used in the proof of the geometrization conjecture. The mean curvature flow (MCF) - the most natural geometric flow for sub-manifolds in an ambient space, had also been successfully applied to address such problems. Nevertheless, the most striking potential applications of MCF are still out of reach. The goal of the proposed research is to advance the understanding of the formation of singularities in MCF, and to study a particular application of MCF for general relativity. More concretely, we propose to continue the systematic study of the formation of bubble-sheet singularities in 4-space, initiated by Choi, Haslhofer and the PI, with the goal of obtaining a mean convex neighbourhood theorem in this setting. We also propose to study the formation of singularities more generally, and in particular, the structure of the singular set. The second objective of the proposed research is to employ MCF in Lorentzian spacetime satisfying the Einstein equation with positive cosmological constant to obtain versions of the cosmic no hair conjecture, namely, geometric convergence results to de Sitter space.

Mots-clés : geometric analysis,geometric flows,mean curvature flow
Projet ERC : PROTOMAT (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Synthetic Chemistry and Materials
Entité participante : Université de Trieste — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1978963.0 €

The bottom-up construction of synthetic cells or protocells from inanimate molecules and materials is one of the grand challenges of our time. While research thus far has been focused on increasing the biochemical complexity individual protocells, this research proposal intends to pioneer the first scientific advancements towards the controlled assembly of protocell building blocks into forms of adaptive and self-regulating protocellular materials (PCMs) that can integrate with living cells and target their mechanochemical sensory pathways.  To achieve this, I am proposing to work at the interface of synthetic chemistry, materials science, microfluidics, and tissue engineering to address the following unprecedented aspects of PCM design and synthetic construction: (1) the engineering of PCMs with mechanical properties that mimic those of soft living tissues; (2) the engineering of PCMs with rudimentary adaptive and self-regulating higher-order behaviours; and (3) the development PCMs capable of interacting and integrating with living cells. I will start by developing the first experimental methodologies to assemble PCMs with a range of elastic moduli that mimic those of soft living tissues from protocells endowed with synthetic polymeric cytoskeletons of different composition. I will then engineer the first adaptive PCMs capable of autonomously converting environmental luminous stimuli into mechanical motions and reconfigurations that will self-regulate their endogenous enzymatic reactivity. Finally, I will develop the first forms of PCMs capable of delivering both mechanical and biochemical cues for living cell spreading, proliferation and differentiation in vitro.  Overall, the proposed work will pioneer new internationally leading science at the life/non-life interface that will generate transformative ideas in the field of bottom-up synthetic biology with profound fundamental and applied consequences, especially in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.

Mots-clés : protocell,prototissue,biomimetic material,protocellular material,bottom up synthetic biology,enzyme cascade,polymer network,mechanical properties of soft materials,tissue engineering
Projet ERC : MEME (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Human Mind and Its Compl exity
Entité participante : Université hébraïque de Jérusalem — Pays : Israël — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : HUJI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499500.0 €

A fundamental property of episodic memory (memory for our personal experiences) is that it is composed of distinct events – ‘got dressed, had breakfast, cycled to work’. But what are these events – how are they formed, encoded and represented in memory? Classic theories of episodic memory focus on the representation of static events, viewed as sets of associations between elements (e.g. ‘John’+‘coffee’+‘kitchen’). Yet there is no comprehensive theory that accounts for encoding and representation of dynamic events (‘John entered the kitchen, poured water over freshly-ground coffee and waited for it to brew’). The MEME project puts forward a new framework that builds on these classic models, but introduces the dimension of time – proposing an account of how dynamic events are segmented, encoded, and represented. Three work packages are designed to test predictions made by each component of the framework, to address the following questions: (1) Segmentation: During continuous experience, what determines that one event is over and a new one has begun? (2) Encoding: Do we encode experience to memory moment-by-moment or event-by-event (in ‘chunks’)? (3) Representation: Once encoded, how are dynamic events represented in the brain? MEME tackles these questions using a combination of innovative experimental designs (including a large-scale mobile game and tailored films created using ‘The Sims’), functional MRI and intracranial recordings. The stimuli crafted for the project, together with an analysis approach supporting identification of temporal dynamics in fMRI, will make it possible to reveal the basic information unit (“byte”) of episodic memory storage. Only by identifying this basic unit will we be able to reach a comprehensive understanding of real-life episodic memory and its disorders. The impact of MEME will go beyond the realm of memory research, because events are the ‘fundamental units of experience’ that affect all our interaction with the world.

Mots-clés : hippocampus fmri episodic memory event segmentation
Projet ERC : RiboID (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Physiology in Health, Disease and Ageing
Entité participante : Université hébraïque de Jérusalem — Pays : Israël — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : HUJI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1700000.0 €

Differentiation and acquisition of cell identity are fundamental processes in multi-cellular organisms. It is well established that chromatin and RNA mechanisms regulate cell fate determination. Mounting evidence from our lab and others, however, suggests that translation is an additional, until now underappreciated, determinant of cell fate. The importance of translation to differentiation can be gleaned from the hematopoietic system, where a prominent feature of human congenital syndromes, due to mutated ribosomes, is aberrant blood production. Crucially, these mutations lead to distinct cell-type-specific differentiation defects, rather than systemic failure. It remains unclear how congenital (“total-body”) ribosomal mutations only affect particular differentiation paths and manifest in a cell-type-specific fashion. We hypothesize that cell-type-specific ribosomal composition—i.e., ribosome heterogeneity—results in cell-type-specific translation profiles, and therefore represents a crucial layer of gene regulation in cell-fate and differentiation. We will explore this hypothesis by pursuing three complementary objectives: (1) Systematically map ribosome heterogeneity and reveal its function in normal hematopoiesis and leukemia; (2) Determine how ribosome heterogeneity controls cell-type-specific translatomes and contributes to cellular transformation; and (3) Explore ribosome heterogeneity at single-cell resolution, using novel methodologies we will develop for simultaneous transcription and translatome interrogation. By combining cutting-edge sequencing techniques with extensive genetic manipulations in physiological settings, we will reveal cell-type-specific translation, controlled by cell-type-specific ribosomes, as major regulators of cell fate in health and disease. Understanding the mechanisms of cell-type-specific translation will provide a new paradigm for elucidating gene expression regulation and for revealing new mechanisms for human diseases.
Projet ERC : DecodeSC (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Integrative B iology : from Genes and Genomes to S ystems
Entité participante : Université hébraïque de Jérusalem — Pays : Israël — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : HUJI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1484125.0 €

Advances in technologies that measure gene expression at single-cell resolution have revolutionized our understanding of the heterogeneity, structure and dynamics of tissues and whole organisms in health and disease. Yet, in most single-cell experiments tissue structure, temporal trajectories, and their underlying mechanisms are lost or not directly accessible. Despite experimental advances, major gaps remain in understanding how tissues orchestrate multicellular functions. In recent years, we and others focused on computationally recovering single facets of single-cell data, such as tissue structure or differentiation trajectories. However, each cell encodes multiple layers of information about its type, location, and various biological processes. Disentangling these signals from large-scale, high-dimensional single-cell data is a major challenge. Building on my expertise in network reconstruction, probabilistic spatial inference and spectral analysis of single-cell data, I will take a unique approach to this challenge by developing computational methodologies combining machine learning and dynamical systems approaches to: (1) tease apart multiple cellular facets encoded in single-cell data; (2) infer interactions between these facets and mechanisms shaping spatiotemporal expression across them; (3) derive generative models to sample and predict unobserved cell states and design optimal perturbations, providing an interpretable platform to study conditions leading to a physiological disruption and therapies aimed at reversing it. My research program will tackle the core challenge in the single-cell era - transforming this exponentially growing, complex data into insight and principles for the underlying biology of multicellular systems. It will advance our understanding and control of collective tissue behavior, and uncover the multiple facets of cellular identity in health and disease, and thus expected to be valuable for both basic and translational research.