Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : CloudBrake (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Earth system science
Entité participante : Delft University of Technology — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : TU Delft
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1867120.0 €

Do even the smallest clouds simply drift with the wind? Vast areas of our oceans and land are covered with shallow cumulus clouds. These low-level clouds are receiving increased attention as uncertainties in their representation in global climate models lead to a spread in predictions of future climate. This attention emphasizes radiative and thermodynamic impacts of clouds, which are thought to energize the large-scale Hadley circulation. But broadly overlooked is the impact of shallow cumuli on the trade-winds that drive this circulation. Reasons for this negligence are a lack of observations of vertical wind structure and the wide range of scales involved. My project will test the hypothesis that shallow cumuli can also slow down the Hadley circulation by vertical transport of momentum. First, observations of clouds and winds will be explicitly connected and the causality of their relationship will be exposed using ground-based and airborne measurements and high-resolution modeling. Second, new lidar techniques aboard aircraft are exploited to validate low-level winds measured by the space-borne Aeolus wind lidar and collect high-resolution wind and turbulence data. Third, different models of momentum transport by shallow convection will be developed to represent its impact on winds. Last, evidence of global relationships between winds and shallow cumulus are traced in Aeolus and additional satellite data and the impact of momentum transport on circulations in a control and warmer climate is tested in a general circulation model. This project exploits my expertise in observing and modeling clouds and convection focused on a hypothesis which, if true, will strongly influence our understanding of the sensitivity of circulations and the sensitivity of climate. It will increase the predictability of low-level winds and convergence patterns, which are important to many disciplines, including climate studies, numerical weather prediction and wind-energy research.

Mots-clés : boundary layer clouds,convection,climate,circulations,momentum,atmospheric winds,remote sensing,high resolution modeling,global climate modeling
Projet ERC : MoodBugs (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Human Mind and Its Complexity
Entité participante : Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie — Pays : Belgique — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : VIB
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 230400.0 €

Do our gut microbes influence our emotions? This sounded far-fetched a decade ago, but rodent research has shown that the microbial ecosystem in the gut (the gut microbiota) causally impacts affective processes. The underlying microbiota-gut-brain signalling mechanisms include the capacity of the microbiota to produce short-chain fatty acids (SCFA) from dietary fiber and to regulate inflammation. These rodent findings have great potential to identify new modifiable players in the (patho)physiology of affective processes and disorders, which is urgently needed given the stalled revolution in affective science, but human translation is needed to fulfill this potential. MoodBugs aims to fill this gap by investigating the relationship between the gut microbiota and stress sensitivity and fear learning, two affective endophenotypes, and the microbiota-gut-brain (SCFA, inflammation) and neur(ochemic)al mechanisms underlying it, in an interdisciplinary hypothesis-driven fashion. In a population-based study, my team showed a cross-sectional association beteen a specific microbiota profile (B2 enterotype) and mental well-being. To test directionality of this association, I propose a longitudinal and mechanistic population-based study[WP1]. To test causality, I will study the effect of depleting the gut microbiota using an antibiotic intervention on fear learning and its brain basis[WP2]. In a placebo-controlled trial, I showed that SCFA administration (1 week) attenuates the cortisol response to psychosocial stress. To test for whom and how SCFA work, I will investigate microbiota composition as a predictor of response to SCFA, and gene expression in affective circuits as the neural mechanism mediating their effect[WP3]. I will induce systemic inflammation to test its causal effect on stress and fear, and on neuroinflammation in the underlying neural circuitry as hypothesized mediator. I will also test the potential of SCFA to dampen these inflammation-induced effects[WP4].

Mots-clés : gastrointestinal microbiota,microbiota gut brain axis,affective neuroscience,stress,fear
Projet ERC : Q-Xtreme (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Austrian Academy of Sciences — Pays : Autriche — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : OAW
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 581426.49 €

Do the laws of quantum physics hold for massive objects of arbitrary size? Q-Xtreme will address this very important question by testing the quantum superposition principle at unprecedented macroscopic scales: we will place a levitated object in two locations at once, separated by a distance comparable to its size. Experimental confirmations of macroscopic quantum superpositions started as early as 1927, using electrons, and have today reached the size of organic molecules containing thousands of atoms. Q-Xtreme will bring macroscopic quantum physics to an entirely new level by preparing macroscopic quantum superpositions of objects containing billions of atoms, pushing current state-of-the-art by at least five orders of magnitude in mass. This goal will be achieved by using a radically new approach: quantum controlling the center-of-mass motion of a levitated nanoparticle (a solid-state object of few hundred nanometers) in ultra-high vacuum by using optical, electrical and magnetic forces. Q-Xtreme requires cutting-edge expertise in photonics, nanotechnology, optoelectronics, and quantum technology, which this Synergy Group uniquely combines. The achievements of Q-Xtreme are only possible by the combined proficiency in both fundamental science and engineering of this Synergy Group. The implications of Q-Xtreme are far-reaching. Testing the quantum superposition principle at unprecedented mass regimes opens the door to experimentally study the interplay of quantum physics and gravity, as well as dark matter and dark energy models. These macroscopic quantum superpositions will also give rise to ultrahigh sensing accuracies, with applications in inertial force sensing, measurements of short-range interactions and gravitational physics.

Mots-clés : levitated nanoparticles,macroscopic quantum superpositions,optomechanics,quantum nanomechanics,quantum superposition principle
Projet ERC : FEMPOWER (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Individuals, Markets and Organisations
Entité participante : University of Oxford — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1470375.0 €

Dominant economic models of household decision-making assume a utopian scenario characterised by cooperation, commitment, and efficiency. While elegant and tractable, a range of common family behaviours fall outside the scope of these frameworks limiting our understanding of households as economic units and their role in helping individuals insure against shocks. Furthermore, the policy prescriptions implied by the standard models can result in harmful unintended consequences if implemented in contexts where non-cooperative decision-making prevails (Erten and Keskin, 2018; Bobonis et al, 2013). FEMPOWER will make both methodological and substantive contributions to the economic literature on female bargaining power by harnessing novel sources of administrative and survey data and by building on my expertise in developing innovative ways of modelling family decision making. FEMPOWER will develop frameworks for estimating models of decision-making that can capture potentially inefficient behaviour in three different Work Packages: (1) Violence & Household Decision-Making; (2) Decision-Making at Divorce; (3) A General Model of Inefficient Households. Each work package will be structured around three complementary activities: 1. Developing high quality empirical facts about behaviour in these contexts using novel administrative data sources; 2. Deriving the conditions under which new, innovative economic theories of behaviour can be tested and estimated; 3. Estimating the key economic parameters of interest to assess the positive and normative impact of policy proposals. To enable me to exploit existing data sets and identifying variation that are particularly well suited to answering the research questions posed, each Work Package draws on data from a different OECD country: Finland (Work Package I), UK (Work Package II), and Sweden (Work Package III).

Mots-clés : family economics,intrahousehold allocations,bargaining power,identification
Projet ERC : POWERSPIN (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Proof of concept grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Condensed matter physics
Entité participante : Aalto University — Pays : Finlande — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 149830.0 €

Downscaling of Si-based microprocessors has considerably increased the amount of heating in computers and other information and communication technology (ICT) devices. As a result, computer servers in big data centres waste more than 90% of the electricity they pull off the grid. High-density electrical currents in microprocessors and interconnects cause excessive warm-up via an effect known as Joule heating. To fulfil future requirements for data transmission and processing rates with low energy consumption, a paradigm shift away from purely charge-based electronics is needed. Recently, post-Si computing with collective spin wave excitations in tailored magnets has been identified as a promising route. Spin waves are transmitted through a magnetic material without the displacement of electric charges (i.e. currents), thus drastically reducing energy consumption and heating. We recently demonstrated that short-wavelength spin waves can be emitted and manipulated by small voltage pulses in ferroelectric-ferromagnetic bilayers. In the ERC PoC project we will use our results to realise an industrially relevant integrated spin wave computing device.

Mots-clés : nanotechnology,magnetic logic,spin wave computing,electric field controlled magnetism
Projet ERC : YMPACT (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The study of the human past
Entité participante : Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 355755.0 €

Dramatic migrations in the third millennium BC re-shaped Europe, modifying its economy, society, ethnicity and ideological structure for ever. The best incentive proxy are populations that moved from the steppes of Russia, spreading as far west as Hungary, implanting a pastoral economy with widespread innovations. These dynamic people covered thousands of kilometres within a few centuries, and organised direct physical relations over the steppes for the first time. This synchronism is promoted by a society organised to fit to this lifestyle, with new herding techniques, likely use of wagons and domesticated horses, and a protein-rich diet, whose adaptive advantages are evident from the physical record in human skeletons and territorial extensions. This is the Yamnaya complex, whose impact remains visible today in the European gene pool and apparently the propagation of Indo-European languages. This international and interdisciplinary project examines the data from 320 excavated burial mounds and c.1350 burials to calibrate these changes, also against a control sample of supposedly local and neighbouring populations. The archaeological, biological and environmental information allows large, new datasets to be built, whose systematic interrogation and modelling should reveal the formative processes behind these changes. Assessing funeral archaeology, material culture, and exchange pattern defines their culture and impact. Scientific analyses of skeletons expose relations of origin, degrees of consanguinity, diet, and histories of individual mobility over single lifetimes with new precision and replicability. They should also act as proxy datasets for environmental changes using further analytical techniques in a context of landscape evolution. Diachronic patterns within these sets should link with aspects of the internal social dynamics, such as the creation of new status positions, visible later in the Pan-European Corded Ware and Bell Beaker groups.

Mots-clés : migration,ancient dna,bio anthropology,isotope geochemistry,landscape archaeology,palynology,pedology,cultural heritage,language change
Projet ERC : VillageInvest (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : University of London — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : U. London
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 145926.0 €

Drawing on research from AISMA (An Anthropological Investigation of Muscular Politics in South Asia) on systematic corruption and bossism we propose to develop a proof of concept which tests the technical feasibility and commercial viability of an innovative online digital lending platform (‘Village Invest, Inc.’). The proof of concept will take place over an eighteen-month period. The pilot testing will be conducted in India. ‘Village Invest’ is a start-up social enterprise that aims to provide low cost loans to marginalised groups in risky political economies. The incapacity of the current microfinance model to reach out to these sectors has been widely recognized. Local moneylenders often remain the only option. However, they charge exorbitant interest rates, spiralling the debts across generations and making them into chronically poor or bonded labourers. What is required is an alternative lending model which uses digital technology to reach out directly to unbanked people. This direct connection lowers costs tremendously, while increasing transparency and accountability. The inability of existing online lending platforms to operate such model in countries like India, derives primarily from the lack of enabling environments: how does one replicate a direct lending system in countries with widespread cultures of unaccountability? This is the challenge that AISMA research expertise will help to untangle though the development of a risk management framework which will consist of: (1) an ethnographically driven Risk Rating Tool, to identify loan-ready borrowers; and (2) a Technical Assistance Package, to build both borrowers and communities knowledge in loan administration. If commercially viable our model will create a prototype for accountable and high impact models of social investments to be replicated across the world.

Mots-clés : development,politics and bossism,moneylending,ethical on line loans,india,south asia
Projet ERC : AGILEFLIGHT (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Systems and communication engineering
Entité participante : University of Zurich — Pays : Suisse — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UZH
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2000000.0 €

Drones are disrupting industries, such as agriculture, package delivery, inspection, and search and rescue. However, they are still either controlled by a human pilot or heavily rely on GPS for navigating autonomously. The alternative to GPS are onboard sensors, such as cameras: from the raw data, a local 3D map of the environment is built, which is then used to plan a safe trajectory to the goal. While the underlying algorithms are well understood, we are still far from having autonomous drones that can navigate through complex environments as good as human pilots. State-of-the-art perception and control algorithms are mature but not robust: coping with unreliable state estimation, low-latency perception, real-time planning in dynamic environments, and tight coupling of perception and action under severe resource constraints are all still unsolved research problems. Another issue is that, because battery energy density is increasing at a very slow rate, drones need to navigate faster in order to accomplish more within their limited flight time. To obtain more agile robots, we need faster sensors and low-latency processing. The goal of this project is to develop novel scientific methods that would allow me to demonstrate autonomous, vision-based, agile quadrotor navigation in unknown, GPS-denied, and cluttered environments with possibly moving obstacles, which can be as effective in terms of maneuverability and agility as those of professional drone pilots. The outcome would not only be beneficial for disaster response scenarios, but also for other scenarios, such as aerial delivery or inspection. To achieve this ambitious goal, I will first develop robust, low-latency, multimodal perception algorithms that combine the advantages of standard cameras with event cameras. Then, I will develop novel methods that unify perception and state estimation together with planning and control to enable agile maneuvers through cluttered, unknown, and dynamic environments.

Mots-clés : micro aerial vehicles,drones,computer vision,event cameras,machine learning
Projet ERC : DRY-2-DRY (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Earth system science
Entité participante : Ghent University — Pays : Belgique — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UGent
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1465000.0 €

Droughts cause agricultural loss, forest mortality and drinking water scarcity. Their predicted increase in recurrence and intensity poses serious threats to future global food security. Several historically unprecedented droughts have already occurred over the last decade in Europe, Australia and the USA. The cost of the ongoing Californian drought is estimated to be about US$3 billion. Still today, the knowledge of how droughts start and evolve remains limited, and so does the understanding of how climate change may affect them. Positive feedbacks from land have been suggested as critical for the occurrence of recent droughts: as rainfall deficits dry out soil and vegetation, the evaporation of land water is reduced, then the local air becomes too dry to yield rainfall, which further enhances drought conditions. Importantly, this is not just a 'local' feedback, as remote regions may rely on evaporated water transported by winds from the drought-affected region. Following this rationale, droughts self-propagate and self-intensify. However, a global capacity to observe these processes is lacking. Furthermore, climate and forecast models are immature when it comes to representing the influences of land on rainfall. Do climate models underestimate this land feedback? If so, future drought aggravation will be greater than currently expected. At the moment, this remains largely speculative, given the limited number of studies of these processes. I propose to use novel in situ and satellite records of soil moisture, evaporation and precipitation, in combination with new mechanistic models that can map water vapour trajectories and explore multi-dimensional feedbacks. DRY-2-DRY will not only advance our fundamental knowledge of the mechanisms triggering droughts, it will also provide independent evidence of the extent to which managing land cover can help 'dampen' drought events, and enable progress towards more accurate short-term and long-term drought forecasts.
Projet ERC : DuaLL (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Computer science and informatics
Entité participante : Centre national de la recherche scientifique — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CNRS
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2348938.0 €

Dualities between algebraic and topological structure are pervasive in mathematics, and toggling back and forth between them has often been associated with important breakthroughs. The main objective of this project is to bring this important tool to bear on a number of subjects in theoretical computer science thereby advancing, systematising, and unifying them. One subject of focus is the search for robust extensions of the theory of regular languages. A powerful technical tool for classifying regular languages and proving decidability results is Eilenberg-Reiterman theory, which assigns classes of finite monoids or single profinite algebras to classes of languages. Recent results by the PI and her co-authors show that the theory may be seen as a special case of Stone duality for Boolean algebras with operators. We want to: - Develop an Eilenberg-Reiterman theory beyond regular languages with the goal of obtaining new tools and separation results for Boolean circuit classes, an active area in the search for lower bounds in complexity theory. -Systematise and advance the search for robust generalisations of regularity to other structures such as infinite words, finite and infinite trees, cost functions, and words with data. The second subject of focus is the development of duality theoretic methods for logics with categorical semantics. We want to approach the problem incrementally: - View duality for categorical semantics through a spectrum of intermediate cases going from regular languages over varying alphabets, Ghilardi-Zawadowski duality for finitely presented Heyting algebras, and the Bodirsky-Pinsker topological Birkhoff theorem to Makkai's, Awodey and Forssell's, and Coumans' recent work on first-order logic duality, thus unifying topics in semantics and formal languages. Our main tools come from Stone duality in various forms including the Jonsson-Tarski canonical extensions and profinite algebra, and from universal algebra and category theory.

Mots-clés : stone duality,topological algebra,category theory,formal languages and automata,semantics,complexity