Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : RATCHETCOG (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Human Mind and Its Complexity
Entité participante : University of Stirling — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1780453.5 €

In human populations, skills and knowledge accumulate over generations, giving rise to behaviours and technologies far more complex than any single individual could achieve alone. This ratchet-like property of human culture appears absent in nonhuman species, as socially transmitted behaviours in animal populations are generally no more complex than those that can be acquired by trial and error. Scientists from a wide range of disciplines have offered high-profile speculative theories about the underlying differences that might be responsible for this striking evolutionary discontinuity, but adequate empirical evidence is still lacking. In the RATCHETCOG project, Dr Caldwell and her team will, for the first time, implement a comprehensive systematic investigation into cumulative cultural evolution, using an experimental method that offers sufficient flexibility to generate valid comparisons across three critical research domains: species differences across the primate family tree; age differences over human development; and learning condition differences in groups of adult human participants. The methods devised for the project will make it possible to both measure and manipulate the complexity of the behaviours learned, thus offering a tool for analysing the extent of ratcheting under different conditions and across different populations. Each of the three research strands provides a vital source of evidence. Studies of nonhuman primates will reveal the limits on learning in these species, and studies with children will provide key opportunities to determine which cognitive abilities predict the development of capacities for cumulative culture. Finally, comparing different learning conditions in groups of adults is critical, as these experiments will allow clear causal conclusions regarding prerequisites and constraints, in relation to task complexity. The project will therefore fully expose the cognitive machinery responsible for the uniqueness of human culture.

Mots-clés : cumulative culture,imitation,learning,comparative cognition,developmental psychology,microsocieties,theory of mind
Projet ERC : PhonLab (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : LMU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 146130.0 €

In line with present trends to expand eHealth in medical care, this project‘s objective is to provide a commercial web-based service for the automatic diagnosis of impaired speech, given a sample of the client’s speech transmitted over the internet. Currently, speech therapists are required to diagnose speech impairments from only a pen and paper analysis of transcriptions based on auditory impressions. The main advantage of the innovative approach of this project is to quantify the production of speech in time according to the scientific state of the art, which is well beyond the scope of presently used impressionistic, auditory techniques. This will be implemented by enhancing a prototype web-based system with software created during the PI’s ERC Advanced Grant for processing acoustically multilingual adult and child speech data. The overall long-term vision is to provide a web-based resource for diagnosing speech disorders from anywhere with access to a microphone and internet connection. As a first step, the proof-of-concept (PoC) will initiate a start-up process to bring this resource, known as PhonLab, to the point of commercialisation in Germany. The work plan of the PoC consists in (1) the development of a business plan based on PhonLab’s likely usage and associated revenue (2) technically enhance PhonLab’s automatisation and user-friendliness (3) developing a promotion strategy towards potential users and clients. The proximate economic benefits lie in the low costs and the rapidity of diagnosis even to remote places. In the long run, PhonLab has therefore also the potential to provide speech therapists in disadvantaged areas of the world with easy access to state-of-the-art techniques for diagnosing speech impairments

Mots-clés : language pathologies  diagnostic tools  health services  speech disorders
Projet ERC : BioMeTRe (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Integrative Biology: from Genes and Genomes to Systems
Entité participante : Friedrich Miescher Institute — Pays : Suisse — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : FMI
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1500000.0 €

In mammals, transcriptional control of many genes relies on cis-regulatory elements such as enhancers, which are often located tens to hundreds of kilobases away from their cognate promoters. Functional interactions between distal regulatory elements and target promoters require mutual physical proximity, which is linked to the three-dimensional structure of the chromatin fiber. Chromosome conformation capture studies revealed that chromosomes are partitioned into Topologically Associating Domains (TADs), sub-megabase domains of preferential physical interactions of the chromatin fiber. Genetic evidence showed that TAD boundaries restrict the genomic range of enhancer-promoter communication, and that interactions between regulatory sequences within TADs are further fine-tuned by smaller-scale structures. However, the mechanistic details of how physical interactions translate into transcriptional outputs are totally unknown. Here we propose to explore the biophysical mechanisms that link chromosome conformation and long-range transcriptional regulation using molecular biology, genetic engineering, single-cell experiments and physical modeling. We will measure chromosomal interactions in single cells and in time using a novel method that relies on an enzymatic process in vivo. Genetic engineering will be used to establish a cell system that allows quantitative measurement of how enhancer-promoter interactions relate to transcription at the population and single-cell levels, and to test the effects of perturbations without confounding effects. Finally, we will develop physical models of promoter operation in the presence of distal enhancers, which will be used to interpret the experimental data and formulate new testable predictions. With this integrated approach we aim at providing an entirely new layer of description of the general principles underlying transcriptional control, which could establish new paradigms for research in epigenetics and gene regulation.

Mots-clés : chromosome conformation,transcriptional control
Projet ERC : HiMISER (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : KU Leuven — Pays : Belgique — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : KUL
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

In my ERC project ‘µThalys’, we are researching future concepts for electronic medical implants. The main idea is to replace current medical implants that typically consist of a titanium casing with electronics and a few lead wires with less intrusive, softer, tissue-like implants. These future generation implants consist of soft, modular, miniature transducer nodes that can act stand-alone, or be connected in a network, thus forming e.g. an implantable sensor network. Now, the main idea driving this proof-of-concept (PoC) project application is that the results of our research could be very suitable to apply in an upcoming field that uses peripheral autonomous nerve stimulation for therapeutic ends. This is mostly referred to as ‘electroceuticals’ or ‘bioelectric medicine’. Rather than using chemical drugs that circulate through the entire body, the field of electroceuticals aims to develop therapies based on local stimulation of a nerve of the autonomous nervous system that leads to the target organ. For example, instead of taking drugs to reduce stomach acid formation the part of the vagus nerve going to the stomach can be stimulated to achieve the same therapeutic effect while reducing side-effects. However, current nerve stimulation devices are rather crude and stimulate all fibres in a nerve using a cuff electrode. Moreover, they are too large to allow them to be used in small animal studies. The non-availability of a miniature, high-resolution peripheral nerve stimulator is therefore a significant roadblock for researchers in the field, and for the future application in humans. In this project, we will combine our existing research results from the µThalys project to create a new generation of stimulators. Miniature electronics devices, packaging and soft high-resolution neural implants will enable miniature proof-of-concept devices that demonstrate precision stimulation in peripheral nerves. First steps towards commercialisation will be taken.

Mots-clés : microsystems,mems,nerve stimulation,medical implants,electroceuticals,neural electrodes,bio electric medicine
Projet ERC : SOLARX (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Physical and analytical chemical sciences
Entité participante : University of Cambridge — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : U. Cambridge
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499585.0 €

In nature, biological light harvesting complexes use antennas molecules to harvest photons, generate excitons and then funnel them to the reaction centre where their energy is used to drive photosynthesis. Inspired by this paradigm, SOLARX will explore new strategies for photon management in solar energy harvesting, based on the transfer and manipulation of excitons at hybrid interfaces. At the core of SOLARX is our development of a new femtosecond transient absorption imaging technique with sub-10fs time resolution and sub-diffraction limit spatial resolution. This opens completely new possibilities to explore excitonic physics at the nanoscale, directly visualising not just the motion of excitons but understanding how vibronic coupling and local structure affects their dynamics. Building on this platform we will deliver ground-breaking new insights into excitonic process in and at the interfaces between organic semiconductors, quantum dots, 2D monolayer semiconductors and lanthanide doped nanoparticles. We will elucidate the fundamental nanoscale dynamics of: (1) endothermic singlet fission, (2) the injection of triplet excitons into lanthanide doped nanoparticles and (3) the motion of excitons in 2D monolayer semiconductors and how these excitons can be funnelled over µm length scales to be transferred to quantum dots. We will then use these insights to develop proof of concept demonstrations of structures which harvest photons across the visible and NIR, efficiently converting high energy visible photons to two NIR photons and then concentrating these photons within structures with the potential to achieve concentration factors well above 100, thus concentrating light to drastically reduce the number of PV panels and hence dramatically reducing the cost of solar energy. SOLARX will thus explore and elucidate fundamental new excitonic physics and use these insights to bring a paradigm shift to solar energy harvesting technologies.

Mots-clés : organic semiconductors,hybrid semiconductor systems,colloidal quantum dots,energy transfer,solar energy harvesting
Projet ERC : i-NANOSWARMS (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and processes engineering
Entité participante : Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : IBEC;IBEC-CERCA
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1999819.0 €

In nature, systems composed of self-propelling agents display complex behaviors such as signal interpretation, propagation, amplification and engage in collective motion mediated by interactions between different agents and their environment. Examples range from swarming bacteria to schooling fish and flocking birds. These self-organized systems have served as an inspiration for researchers seeking to achieve complexity in artificial systems composed of synthetic agents. A class of agents that has recently been demonstrated is of synthetic nanomachines (nanobots) that can self-propel thanks to the conversion of chemical energy, harvested from the environment, into motion. While most of the artificial nanobots have been explored at individual level, their collective emergent behavior, arising from inter-particle interactions through chemical and hydrodynamic fields, and through environment mediated interactions is yet to be properly studied. Understanding collective effects will be especially useful in biologically relevant environments, where a number of applications for these nanobot systems have been envisioned. i-NANOSWARMS aims to realize enzyme-powered nanobot swarms capable to self-propel using biocompatible and bioavailable fuels and display collective and cooperative behaviours through communication among them as well as with the host environment. The proposal is divided in three working packages. In WP1, I will create a toolbox of nanobots based on a library of enzymes and nanoparticle architectures to study communication and long-range signal propagation using enzyme cascades. WP2 will be devoted to the collective behavior of nanobot swarms, exploiting biomimetic strategies such as chemotaxis and stigmergy to guide and recruit other nanobots. WP3 aims at studying, as a proof-of-concept of the applicability of intelligent nanoswarms for biomedical applications, cooperative behavior among nanoswarms for enhanced drug delivery and medical imaging.

Mots-clés : nanomotors,self propulsion,bioinspired communication,collective behaviour,enzyme catalysis,nanomedicines
Projet ERC : ReactiveFronts (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and processes engineering
Entité participante : Université de Rennes — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UNIVRENNES
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1954997.0 €

In porous media, mixing interfaces such as contaminant plume fringes or boundaries between water bodies create highly reactive localized hotspots of chemical and microbiological activity, whether in engineered or natural systems. These reactive fronts are characterized by high concentration gradients, complex flow dynamics, variable water saturation, fluctuating redox conditions and multifunctional biological communities. The spatial and temporal variability of velocity gradients is expected to elongate mixing interfaces and steepen concentration gradients, thus strongly affecting biochemical reactivity. However, a major issue with porous media flows is that these essential micro-scale interactions are inaccessible to direct observation. Furthermore, the lack of a validated upscaling framework from fluid- to system-scale represents a major barrier to the application of reactive transport models to natural or industrial problems. The ambition of the ReactiveFronts project is to address this knowledge gap by setting up a high level interdisciplinary team that will provide a new theoretical understanding and novel experimental imaging capacities for micro-scale interactions between flow, mixing and reactions and their impact on reactive front kinetics at the system scale. ReactiveFronts will develop an original approach to this long-standing problem; combining theoretical, laboratory and field experimental methods.The focus on reactive interface dynamics, which represents a paradigm shift for reactive transport modelling in porous media, will require the development of original theoretical approaches (WP1) and novel microfluidic experiments (WP2). This will form a strong basis for the study of complex features at increasing spatial scales, including the coupling between fluid dynamics and biological activity (WP4), the impact of 3D flow topologies and chaotic mixing on effective reaction kinetics (WP3), and the field scale assessment of these interactions (WP5).

Mots-clés : dispersion,mixing and biochemical reactions in porous media,fluid stretching,biofilms,contaminant transport and remediation,upscaling,microfluidics,reactive tracer tests,hydrogeophysics
Projet ERC : ReactiveFronts (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and processes 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 : 43750.0 €

In porous media, mixing interfaces such as contaminant plume fringes or boundaries between water bodies create highly reactive localized hotspots of chemical and microbiological activity, whether in engineered or natural systems. These reactive fronts are characterized by high concentration gradients, complex flow dynamics, variable water saturation, fluctuating redox conditions and multifunctional biological communities. The spatial and temporal variability of velocity gradients is expected to elongate mixing interfaces and steepen concentration gradients, thus strongly affecting biochemical reactivity. However, a major issue with porous media flows is that these essential micro-scale interactions are inaccessible to direct observation. Furthermore, the lack of a validated upscaling framework from fluid- to system-scale represents a major barrier to the application of reactive transport models to natural or industrial problems. The ambition of the ReactiveFronts project is to address this knowledge gap by setting up a high level interdisciplinary team that will provide a new theoretical understanding and novel experimental imaging capacities for micro-scale interactions between flow, mixing and reactions and their impact on reactive front kinetics at the system scale. ReactiveFronts will develop an original approach to this long-standing problem; combining theoretical, laboratory and field experimental methods.The focus on reactive interface dynamics, which represents a paradigm shift for reactive transport modelling in porous media, will require the development of original theoretical approaches (WP1) and novel microfluidic experiments (WP2). This will form a strong basis for the study of complex features at increasing spatial scales, including the coupling between fluid dynamics and biological activity (WP4), the impact of 3D flow topologies and chaotic mixing on effective reaction kinetics (WP3), and the field scale assessment of these interactions (WP5).

Mots-clés : dispersion,mixing and biochemical reactions in porous media,fluid stretching,biofilms,contaminant transport and remediation,upscaling,microfluidics,reactive tracer tests,hydrogeophysics
Projet ERC : NewNGR (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Fundamental constituents of matter
Entité participante : University of Cambridge — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : U. Cambridge
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 0.0 €

In recent years general relativity (GR) has become an increasingly important new tool in areas of physics beyond its traditional playground in astrophysics. The main motivation for this comes from the AdS/CFT correspondence which conjectures an equivalence between gravity in anti-de Sitter (AdS) spaces and certain conformal field theories (CFT’s). Via this correspondence, GR now plays a key role in improving our understanding of non-gravitational physics at strong coupling. The AdS/CFT correspondence naturally leads to the study of GR in dimensions greater than four and/or in AdS spaces. Our current understanding of GR in these new settings is rather limited but it has been realized that the physics of gravity can be significantly different than in the 4d asymptotically flat case. Moreover, to access these new gravitational phenomena numerical methods have been and will be essential. However, the use of numerical GR beyond the traditional 4d asymptotically flat case is still in its infancy. The goal of this project is to improve our understanding of GR in higher dimensions and/or AdS spaces using numerical techniques. To achieve this goal, we will focus on the study of the following topics: 1. Develop stable codes for doing numerical GR in AdS and higher dimensions. We will use numerical GR and the AdS/CFT correspondence to study out of equilibrium phenomena in strongly coupled CFT’s. We will also use numerical GR to understand the endpoint of the various black hole instabilities and thereby address long standing conjectures in GR. 2. New types of stationary black holes. We will use numerical GR to numerically construct new types of black holes in higher dimensions and in AdS, with novel topologies and fewer symmetries than the known ones. We shall apply them to the study of equilibrium configurations in strongly coupled gauge theories at finite temperature.

Mots-clés : numerical general relativity,higher dimensions
Projet ERC : HAS (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Mathematics
Entité participante : Hebrew University of Jerusalem — Pays : Israël — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : HUJI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1569488.0 €

In recent years there has been impressive development of the higher category theory and in particular development of the categorical counterpart of the Langlands conjecture over fields of finite characteristic. But until now, this development has had little bearing on the classical problems which deal with spaces of functions. The main goal of this proposal is to build the technique to apply the category theory to classical problems. Of course on the way I will have to deal with problems in the categorical realm. The first part of the proposal deals with construction of characters of irreducible representations of reductive groups over local nonarchimedian fields F in terms of traces of the Frobenious endomorphisms which should lead to the proof of the "Stable center conjecture" at least for representations of depth zero. The second part is on the extension of the definition of L-functions of representations of reductive F-groups corresponding to an arbitrary representation of the dual groups. As it is now, the definition is known only for very special representations of the dual group and only in the case of classical groups. The third part is on the extension of the classical theory to representations of Kac-Moody groups over local fields.

Mots-clés : representation theory,infinity categories,l adic sheaves