Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : STRESNET (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Human Mind and Its Complexity
Entité participante : Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : RUNMC
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2000000.0 €

Acute stress has a profound impact on cognitive functioning: it raises alertness for threat, yet it impairs our ability to think clearly. Repeated exposure to stressors is furthermore a critical transdiagnostic factor in etiology, relapse, and chronification in almost all psychiatric disorders. We know from animal work at the cellular level how stressors trigger a neurochemical cascade that alters properties of widespread neuronal populations. A critical gap in our knowledge, however, is how such cellular effects translate to the level of large-scale neural systems which implement higher-order cognition. Here, I propose a novel framework for understanding such alterations as shifts in network balance: I hypothesize that acute stress causes dynamic shifts in resource allocation at the level of large-scale networks. First, I will leverage recent advances in network connectivity modeling to characterize the spatiotemporal dynamics of such shifts during acute stress and recovery. Using wearable biosensors and mobile applications, I aim to identify which neural markers predict resilience to stress in real life. Second, I will cross-validate these markers in a patient group characterized by high stress sensitivity. Third, to investigate how rapid network shifts are generated, I will examine the distinct roles of noradrenergic and dopaminergic neuromodulatory systems. Fourth, I will test the hypothesis that cognitive functions supported by one network can be disrupted by shifting balance towards another. Finally, I will develop a network-based implementation of functional MRI neurofeedback to train stress-sensitive participants to adaptively reallocate neural resources during acute stress. When successful, this project will yield 1) unprecedented insight into how our brain adapts to acute stress; 2) novel ecologically validated transdiagnostic biomarkers of stress resilience versus sensitivity; and 3) a potentially groundbreaking method for training stress resilience.

Mots-clés : stress,neuroendocrinology,large scale brain networks,neurofeedback,stress related disorders
Projet ERC : PIDS (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Social World and Its Diversity
Entité participante : University of Liverpool — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1365346.0 €

Addressing social inequality in diet and health is a major public health challenge; the socially disadvantaged have the poorest diets and die the youngest. A further cause for concern is that commonly adopted public health interventions may be inadvertently worsening social inequalities in diet. We therefore need to identify interventions that benefit all, but are particularly effective in improving the diet of the disadvantaged, as this approach will reduce inequality and be the most effective way of improving overall population health. By testing a novel psychological theory, across two work packages (WPs) I will establish the type of population level interventions that worsen social inequalities in diet and identify interventions that not only improve the diet of the overall population, but also reduce inequality. WP1 will test the new hypothesis that the social patterning of executive function results in information-based nutrition interventions benefitting the socially advantaged but failing the disadvantaged, whilst structural interventions benefit all and also reduce social inequalities in diet. In WP1 I will use newly developed immersive digital reality methods to study dietary choice and laboratory feeding paradigms to examine dietary consumption in the socially advantaged vs. disadvantaged, before conducting the first ever large scale randomized control trial to identify how the real-world implementation of information vs. structural interventions affect social inequalities in diet. WP2 will exploit the knowledge generated in WP1 in order to develop a state of the art epidemiological model to simulate how the implementation of different information vs. structural nutrition policy interventions would affect population level health and health inequalities in Europe. By using inter-disciplinary methods this project will identify nutrition intervention approaches that can be used to improve population health and reduce social inequality.

Mots-clés : obesity,diet,eating behaviour
Projet ERC : PROSOCIAL (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Human Mind and Its Complexity
Entité participante : Erasmus University Rotterdam — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : EUR
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 669123.7 €

Adolescence is an important transition period in life, where individuals gain independence from their caregivers and develop into adults who pursue their own goals. Our understanding of this transition period has benefited from two decades of research on brain development, in which it was discovered that adolescence represents a period of risk for heightened emotional reactivity, and that the developing brain in adolescence is much more plastic than previously thought. The existing models, however, have often ignored how these aspects of normative development have adaptive functions. In this proposal, I will use the original approach of testing for the first time the hypothesis that the very same emotional reactivity that was previously argued to create risks for potential negative developmental trajectories (including risk for substance abuse, delinquency) may under other circumstances create opportunities for prosocial developmental trajectories (voluntary behavior to benefit others) – such as by fostering cooperation, sharing and helping. For this purpose, I will measure functional and structural brain development longitudinally across the age range 10-21 years. I will test linear versus non-linear developmental patterns of brain activity for three key aspects of prosocial development (cooperation, sharing, and helping). This focus on positive development will provide a turning point in our understanding of adolescent brain development. The program will make the additional step of testing an intervention for prosocial development. An experimental longitudinal intervention study is crucial for the question whether adolescence is a window of opportunity for prosocial development. A mechanistic understanding of the different phases of adolescent development will prove useful not only for theory development, but also for teachers and youth workers to shape educational and health programs around opportunities for prosocial development, affecting all adolescents.

Mots-clés : development,adolescence
Projet ERC : AEDMOS (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Fundamental constituents of matter
Entité participante : Technical University of Munich — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : TUM
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1999375.0 €

Advanced insight into ever smaller structures of matter and their ever faster dynamics hold promise for pushing the frontiers of many fields in science and technology. Time-domain investigations of ultrafast microscopic processes are most successfully carried out by pump/probe experiments. Intense waveform-controlled few-cycle near-infrared laser pulses combined with isolated sub-femtosecond XUV (extreme UV) pulses have made possible direct access to electron motion on the atomic scale. These tools along with the techniques of laser-field-controlled XUV photoemission (“attosecond streaking”) and ultrafast UV-pump/XUV-probe spectroscopy have permitted real-time observation of electronic motion in experiments performed on atoms in the gas phase and of electronic transport processes in solids. The purpose of this project is to to get insight into intra- and inter-molecular electron dynamics by extending attosecond spectroscopy to these processes. AEDMOS will allow control and real-time observation of a wide range of hyperfast fundamental processes directly on their natural, i.e. attosecond (1 as = EXP-18 s) time scale in molecules and molecular structures. In previous work we have successfully developed attosecond tools and techniques. By combining them with our experience in UHV technology and target preparation in a new beamline to be created in the framework of this project, we aim at investigating charge migration and transport in supramolecular assemblies, ultrafast electron dynamics in photocatalysis and dynamics of electron correlation in high-TC superconductors. These dynamics – of electronic excitation, exciton formation, relaxation, electron correlation and wave packet motion – are of broad scientific interest reaching from biomedicine to chemistry and physics and are pertinent to the development of many modern technologies including molecular electronics, optoelectronics, photovoltaics, light-to-chemical energy conversion and lossless energy transfer.

Mots-clés : attosecond spectroscopy,ultrafast electron dynamics in molecular systems,photocatalysis,dynamics of electron correlation in high t c superconductors
Projet ERC : PERFUME (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Systems and communication engineering
Entité participante : EURECOM — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2358768.94 €

Advances in theory, integration techniques and standardization have led to huge progress in wireless technologies. Despite successes with past and current (5G) research, new paradigms leading to greater spectral efficiencies and intelligent network organizations will be in great demand to absorb the continuous growth in mobile data. Our ability to respond suitably to this challenge in the next decade will ensure sustained competitiveness in the digital economy. With few exceptions such as ad-hoc topologies, classical wireless design places the radio device under the tight control of the network. Promising technologies envisioned in 5G such as (i) Coordinated MultiPoint (CoMP) techniques, (ii) Massive MIMO, or (ii) Millimeter-wave (MMW) by-and-large abide by this model. Pure network-centric designs, such as optical cloud-supported ones raise cost and security concerns and do not fit all deployment scenarios. Also they make the network increasingly dependent on a large amount of signaling and device-created measurements. Our project envisions a radically new approach to designing the mobile internet, which taps into the device’s new capabilities. Our approach recasts devices as distributed computational nodes solving together multi-agent problems, allowing to maximize the network performance by exploiting local measurement and information exchange capabilities. The success of the project relies on the understanding of new information theory limits for systems with decentralized information, the development of novel device communication methods, and advanced team-based statistical signal processing algorithms. The potential gains associated with exploiting the devices’ collective, network friendly, intelligence are huge. The project will demonstrate long-term impact of the new paradigm, in pushing the frontiers of mobile internet performance, as well as short- to mid-term impact through its adaptation to currently known communications scenarios and techniques.

Mots-clés : wireless networks,stochastic optimization,team decision theory,cooperative networks,information theory,mimo,device to device,interference,robust algorithms,decentralized techniques
Projet ERC : GeroProtect (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Integrative Biology: from Genes and Genomes to Systems
Entité participante : Max Planck Society — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : MPG
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2218750.0 €

Advancing age is the major risk factor for disability and illness, including cardiovascular, metabolic and neu-rodegenerative disease and cancer. The increasing incidence of older people in European countries is posing major medical, social and economic challenges, and there is an urgent need to find ways of compressing late-life morbidity. Ageing has proved malleable to genetic and pharmacological interventions in laboratory animals, and at least some of the mechanisms are conserved over large evolutionary distances. Reduced activity of the nutrient-sensing insulin/insulin-like growth factor/TOR signalling network can increase health and combat ageing-related disease in laboratory animals, with increasing evidence of its importance in human ageing. There is thus a prospect for pharmacological intervention to prevent more than one ageing-related condition, rather than tackling diseases one by one and as they arise. The aim of this research programme is to evaluate the potential for pharmacological prevention of ageing-related decline in humans with a polypill targeting the nutrient-sensing network. We find that three licensed drugs, lithium, rapamycin and trametinib, act independently, at different nodes in the network, to increase lifespan in the fruitfly Drosophila, implying that the network controls more than one underlying mechanism of ageing, and that a polypill of these drugs could be particularly effective. We shall test this idea in mice, and assess the underlying mechanisms in Drosophila and mice. We have found that suppression of the Ras signalling branch of the network, which has a well known role in human cancer, can extend lifespan in both the fruitfly Drosophila and mice, and we shall assess its role in humans. Interventions that ameliorate ageing often have sex-specific effects, and we shall investigate the mechanisms leading to these for the nutrient-sensing network. The outputs of the work will inform future clinical trails in humans.

Mots-clés : multimorbidity
Projet ERC : A-LIFE (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Earth system science
Entité participante : Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : LMU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 0.0 €

Aerosols (i.e. tiny particles suspended in the air) are regularly transported in huge amounts over long distances impacting air quality, health, weather and climate thousands of kilometers downwind of the source. Aerosols affect the atmospheric radiation budget through scattering and absorption of solar radiation and through their role as cloud/ice nuclei. In particular, light absorption by aerosol particles such as mineral dust and black carbon (BC; thought to be the second strongest contribution to current global warming after CO2) is of fundamental importance from a climate perspective because the presence of absorbing particles (1) contributes to solar radiative forcing, (2) heats absorbing aerosol layers, (3) can evaporate clouds and (4) change atmospheric dynamics. Considering this prominent role of aerosols, vertically-resolved in-situ data on absorbing aerosols are surprisingly scarce and aerosol-dynamic interactions are poorly understood in general. This is, as recognized in the last IPCC report, a serious barrier for taking the accuracy of climate models and predictions to the next level. To overcome this barrier, I propose to investigate aging, lifetime and dynamics of absorbing aerosol layers with a holistic end-to-end approach including laboratory studies, airborne field experiments and numerical model simulations. Building on the internationally recognized results of my aerosol research group and my long-term experience with airborne aerosol measurements, the time seems ripe to systematically bridge the gap between in-situ measurements of aerosol microphysical and optical properties and the assessment of dynamical interactions of absorbing particles with aerosol layer lifetime through model simulations. The outcomes of this project will provide fundamental new understanding of absorbing aerosol layers in the climate system and important information for addressing the benefits of BC emission controls for mitigating climate change.

Mots-clés : climate change,air quality,absorbing aerosol,aerosol long range transport,mixing and aging,aerosol dynamic interaction,aircraft observations,remote sensing,radiative transfer,atmosph  models
Projet ERC : UniverScale (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Polish Academy of Sciences — Pays : Pologne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : PAN
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 501169.0 €

After detection of the accelerated expansion of the Universe (Nobel prize 2011) and the existence of an enigmatic “dark energy” component of the matter-energy content of the Universe the physical explanation of the nature of dark energy has become a major challenge for astronomers and physicists in recent years. The recent empirical determinations of H0 complicated even more our understanding of the Universe since they differ by about 4σ from the value obtained from Planck data and the ΛCDM model, which suggest that new physics might be required in the models. We will calibrate two geometrical methods which will yield 1% distances a thousand times further out than Gaia parallaxes. The great advantage of our approach is the full control on all potential errors affecting the distance determinations, including systematic errors elusive in most other methods. In addition, we will provide mutual crosschecks at the sub-percent accuracy level with three completely independent geometrical methods. This will allow for the first time to verify the accuracy (and not only precision) at this unprecedented level of precision. Applying these methods we will calibrate the extragalactic distance scale with an unprecedented precision and accuracy. This will allow for a 1% H0 determination with Cepheids and SN Ia. Novel reverberation studies of AGN continua will allow us to determine H0 completely independently, and provide direct insight into the larger redshift Universe, including the H(z) dependence which will constrain other cosmological parameters. Our results will have strong impact on many fields of modern astrophysics. In particular they will definitively answer the question if new physics beyond the standard cosmological model is required. They will also be central to understand the physical nature of dark energy which constitutes about 72% of the matter-energy of the Universe.

Mots-clés : cepheids,eclipsing binaries,binary systems,hubble constant
Projet ERC : UniverScale (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : University of Concepción — Pays : Chili — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UdeC
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 927000.0 €

After detection of the accelerated expansion of the Universe (Nobel prize 2011) and the existence of an enigmatic “dark energy” component of the matter-energy content of the Universe the physical explanation of the nature of dark energy has become a major challenge for astronomers and physicists in recent years. The recent empirical determinations of H0 complicated even more our understanding of the Universe since they differ by about 4σ from the value obtained from Planck data and the ΛCDM model, which suggest that new physics might be required in the models. We will calibrate two geometrical methods which will yield 1% distances a thousand times further out than Gaia parallaxes. The great advantage of our approach is the full control on all potential errors affecting the distance determinations, including systematic errors elusive in most other methods. In addition, we will provide mutual crosschecks at the sub-percent accuracy level with three completely independent geometrical methods. This will allow for the first time to verify the accuracy (and not only precision) at this unprecedented level of precision. Applying these methods we will calibrate the extragalactic distance scale with an unprecedented precision and accuracy. This will allow for a 1% H0 determination with Cepheids and SN Ia. Novel reverberation studies of AGN continua will allow us to determine H0 completely independently, and provide direct insight into the larger redshift Universe, including the H(z) dependence which will constrain other cosmological parameters. Our results will have strong impact on many fields of modern astrophysics. In particular they will definitively answer the question if new physics beyond the standard cosmological model is required. They will also be central to understand the physical nature of dark energy which constitutes about 72% of the matter-energy of the Universe.

Mots-clés : cepheids,eclipsing binaries,binary systems,hubble constant
Projet ERC : CosmicDust (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Universe sciences
Entité participante : Cardiff University — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1789713.75 €

After more than two decades of infrared astronomy, we still know very little about the origin and evolution of cosmic dust in galaxies, responsible for obscuring half of all starlight since the Big Bang. This obscured starlight is re-radiated in a region of the electromagnetic spectrum that is still relatively unexplored. Herschel provides a unique opportunity to resolve this by revealing the 90% of dust too cold to be detected before, yet only a tiny fraction of the largest survey of the sky carried out with Herschel has been exploited. This project aims to unravel the dust and gas content of galaxies in the local universe and over cosmic time. I will produce the first statistical census of dust in galaxies, pushing out to earlier cosmic epochs than previously possible. This also provides us with an opportunity to detect unusual objects not seen in other surveys, including a population of extremely dusty galaxies found in Herschel with blue optical colours and very different properties to more evolved spirals typical of the Milky Way. I will use our multi-wavelength data to investigate the emissivity, gas and star formation conditions on resolved spatial scales. Our Herschel data will also expose the role of environment in the interstellar content of early-type and spiral galaxies. I propose a novel approach to resolve the controversy of whether dust forms in exploding stars using polarized light. This could have implications for the detection of polarized signals in the relic radiation from the Big Bang, currently attributed to primordial gravitational waves. Our polarized dust maps of nearby supernova will reveal whether this could be a major contaminant to cosmological signals. This project is timely due to the availability of final Herschel data products and new facilities in 2015-16 in combination with tools and techniques that we have tried and tested. This ERC award will provide me with the resources to continue to lead this emerging field.

Mots-clés : galaxies,dust,far infrared,supernovae,polarization