Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : GEOFLUIDS (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Mathematics
Entité participante : Spanish National Research Council — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CSIC
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1256375.0 €

There are many high-profile problems in PDEs that ultimately boil down to assertions of a strongly geometric or topological nature. One feature that makes these problems both very difficult and extremely appealing is that there is not a standard set of techniques that one can routinely resort to in order to attack them. Indeed, the very nature of these questions makes them strongly interdisciplinary, so successful approaches require finely tailored combinations of ideas and techniques coming from different branches of mathematics (analysis, geometry and topology), often interspersed with some physical intuition. In this project I aim at going significantly beyond the state of the art in a wide class of geometric questions in PDEs, with an emphasis on problems in fluid mechanics and encompassing long-standing questions that can be traced back to leading analysts and geometers such as Arnold, De Giorgi and Yau. The project is divided in three interrelated blocks, respectively devoted to the study of Beltrami fields in steady incompressible fluids, to geometric evolution problems and to global approximation theorems. Key to the proposal is a versatile new approach to a number of geometric problems in PDEs that I have pioneered and applied in several seemingly unrelated contexts. The power of this technique is laid bare by my recent proofs of a well-known conjecture on knotted vortex lines in topological fluid mechanics that was popularized by Arnold and Moffatt in the 1960s and of a long-standing conjecture on the existence of thin vortex tubes in steady solutions to the Euler equation that dates back to Lord Kelvin in 1875. The award of a Starting Grant will enable me to establish a top-level research group on these topics.

Mots-clés : topological fluid mechanics,beltrami fields,vortex lines,invariant tori,euler equation,eigenvalues,stability,global approximation theorem,allen cahn equation,geometric properties
Projet ERC : FSC (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Proof of concept grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Computer science and informatics
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 : 150000.0 €

There are two major flavors of processor core microarchitectures, namely the in-order core and the out-of-order core. Out-of-order processors deliver high performance while incurring high design complexity, large chip area and high power consumption. In-order processors on the other hand feature low complexity, small chip area and low power consumption, but deliver limited performance. There is a clear need for a novel core microarchitecture that delivers high performance at low hardware complexity, low cost and low power consumption. This is of particular interest for mobile and edge devices (e.g., tablets, smartphones, smartwatches, etc.) where increasingly high performance is needed at low cost and low power consumption. The mobile and edge device market is a huge market which continues to grow. High-performance out-of-order processors are too costly and too power-hungry, while in-order processors deliver insufficient performance for the increasingly high-performance demands of emerging mobile and edge workloads and use cases. We propose a novel core microarchitecture, called the Forward Slice Core (FSC) microarchitecture, which provides high performance at low cost and low power consumption. FSC achieves a dramatic improvement in efficiency by replacing the expensive and high-complexity out-of-order hardware with much simpler in-order hardware queues into which instructions are intelligently steered for high performance using the notion of a load's forward slice. FSC has the potential to improve performance per Watt per euro by at least an order of magnitude. The overall objective of this PoC project is to build a strong benchmarking and IPR portfolio to convince potential processor manufacturers to license the Forward Slice Core microarchitecture. The project will strengthen the evaluation of the FSC proposal through simulation and real-hardware implementation, and develop a licensing strategy for commercialization.

Mots-clés : computer architecture
Projet ERC : DEATHREVOL (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The study of the human past
Entité participante : National Research Center on Human Evolution — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CENIEH
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1494486.0 €

There can be no more profound insight into the human mind than the complex cultural practices surrounding death. While all human cultures across the globe today engage in funerary practices, the emergence of funerary behavior is one of the most contentious aspects in the field of human evolution. New methodological approaches on taphonomy field can help elucidate fundamental facets of hominin behavior making important contributions to the understanding of our ancestors. The European fossil record is a key source of information in this regard due to the relative abundance of fossil skeleton, many of which have been interpreted as burials, and the possibility for biological and cultural interactions between different human species. Nevertheless, direct taphonomic analyses on these human fossils are rare and essentially limited to those cases with possible signs of cannibalism. The present application proposes a multidisciplinary research project to investigate the origin of funerary behavior during the Middle Pleistocene and to trace this behavior throughout the European Paleolithic archaeological record. This project aims to address the dearth of taphonomic studies on Paleolithic hominins and represents the first large-scale project focused on a thorough multi-taphonomic study of the European fossil record. This involves the participation of a wide team of scholars and a network of methods including classical and innovative taphonomic analyses, virtual reconstructions for forensic analysis, study of spatial distribution patterns, the global relationship of different sites, and mathematical models to interconnect the broad-spectrum data gathered. The results have the potential to significantly alter our views on behavioral aspects of European Paleolithic populations. In particular, the results will examine whether mortuary practices and, hence a culture of death, predated the appearance of modern humans and Neandertals.

Mots-clés : taphonomy,funerary practices,site formation,human behavior
Projet ERC : STARNEL (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Physiology in Health, Disease and Ageing
Entité participante : Institut Curie — Pays : France — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 500000.0 €

There has been tremendous progress in understanding the importance of the microenvironment and its chemical signals for homeostasis of stem cell niche in the intestine and for tumor invasion and metastasis formation in many different tissues. However, the way stromal cells such as myofibroblasts or cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) use mechanical forces to shape the extracellular matrix and consequently dictate the response of epithelial cells remains unexplored at the single-cell level mainly due to limited imaging tools. Here we propose a multi-disciplinary approach, at the interface of cancer cell biology and physics, aimed to understand how myofibroblasts contractility influences epithelial cell functions in physiological (homeostasis) and pathological (cancer) conditions using the gut as a model. Specific aims: 1. Characterize myofibroblasts in gut mucosa. Using omics analysis, mouse models and optogenetic tools we will obtain molecular signatures of myofibroblasts, characterize their migration, proliferation and contractile capacities. 2. Determine the role of myofibroblasts contractility in gut epithelial homeostasis. Using gut-on-chip and intravital imaging we will determine if supracellular contractility of myofibroblasts is necessary to maintain crypt shape upon mechanical stimuli. 3. Determine the role of CAF alignment in cancer progression. We will use 3D in vitro models to explore if CAFs alignment prevents or stimulates cancer cell invasion. Using mesentery metastasis mouse model, we will test if CAFs alignment can generate collagen bundles that cancer cells use to metastasize. 4. Explore if CAF alignment can induce therapy resistance and tumor relapse. Using human samples of rectal cancer before and after chemo-radiotherapy we will determine if CAFs alignment can protect cancer cells from therapy and stimulate metastasis formation.

Mots-clés : cell contractility,fibrosis,extracellular matrix,myofibroblasts,invasion,metastasis
Projet ERC : CoCoUnit (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Computer science and informatics
Entité participante : Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UPC
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2498661.0 €

There is a fast-growing interest in extending the capabilities of computing systems to perform human-like tasks in an intelligent way. These technologies are usually referred to as cognitive computing. We envision a next revolution in computing in the forthcoming years that will be driven by deploying many “intelligent” devices around us in all kind of environments (work, entertainment, transportation, health care, etc.) backed up by “intelligent” servers in the cloud. These cognitive computing systems will provide new user experiences by delivering new services or improving the operational efficiency of existing ones, and altogether will enrich our lives and our economy. A key characteristic of cognitive computing systems will be their capability to process in real time large amounts of data coming from audio and vision devices, and other type of sensors. This will demand a very high computing power but at the same time an extremely low energy consumption. This very challenging energy-efficiency requirement is a sine qua non to success not only for mobile and wearable systems, where power dissipation and cost budgets are very low, but also for large data centers where energy consumption is a main component of the total cost of ownership. Current processor architectures (including general-purpose cores and GPUs) are not a good fit for this type of systems since they keep the same basic organization as early computers, which were mainly optimized for “number crunching”. CoCoUnit will take a disruptive direction by investigating unconventional architectures that can offer orders of magnitude better efficiency in terms of performance per energy and cost for cognitive computing tasks. The ultimate goal of this project is to devise a novel processing unit that will be integrated with the existing units of a processor (general-purpose cores and GPUs) and altogether will be able to deliver cognitive computing user experiences with extremely high energy-efficiency.

Mots-clés : computer architecture,processor microarchitecture,power aware microarchitectures,special,purpose architectures
Projet ERC : FraMEPhys (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Human Mind and Its Complexity
Entité participante : University of Birmingham — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1481183.75 €

There is a growing consensus that causal explanation is not the whole story about explanation in science. Metaphysics has seen intense recent attention to the notion of grounding; in philosophy of physics, the focus has been on mathematical and structural explanation. But the grounding debate has been criticized for insularity and disconnection from scientific practice, while work on explanation in physics tends to overlook the sophisticated logical systems and conceptual distinctions developed in metaphysics. This situation hinders understanding of novel explanatory scenarios n philosophy of physics, where familiar models of causal explanation seem to break down. FraMEPhys addresses these challenges by combining new conceptual innovations and insights from both metaphysics and philosophy of physics to transform our understanding of the nature of explanation. FraMEPhys will engage systematically with the best work on explanation within metaphysics and philosophy of science to develop a new general framework for understanding metaphysical explanation in physics, based around the structural-equations approach to causation. The guiding idea is that the conceptual and methodological tools of structural-equations modelling can be extended beyond their familiar application to causal explanation. This promising strategy, based on ground-breaking recent work by the PI, will be applied in FraMEPhys to model the explanatory structures involved in three case studies from philosophy of physics: geometrical explanations of inertial and gravitational motion, explanation in the presence of closed time-like curves, and the explanatory connection between entangled quantum systems. FraMEPhys will develop new concepts for understanding the varieties of explanation, will provide a uniquely systematic treatment of some key cases in philosophy of physics, and will push forward fruitful interactions at the intersection of metaphysics, philosophy of science and philosophy of physics.

Mots-clés : explanation,grounding,causation,modality,metaphysics,philosophy of physics,quantum,mechanics,relativity,entanglement
Projet ERC : MATRIX (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Earth system science
Entité participante : Board of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology — Pays : Suisse — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : ETH Zurich
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 3498330.0 €

There is a need for a radically new laboratory experimental approach for studying the interaction of seismic waves with the complex media of the Earth’s subsurface. We present here a fundamental new approach to seismic wave experimentation that involves fully immersing a physical seismic experiment within a virtual numerical environment. This enormously challenging endeavour, which is relevant to many outstanding issues in seismology, has not been previously attempted. By continuously varying the output of numerous transponders closely spaced around the physical domain using a control algorithm that takes advantage of measurements made by a scanning Laser-Doppler Vibrometer and a novel theory of exact boundary conditions, waves travelling between the physical and numerical domains will seamlessly propagate back and forth between the two domains without being affected by reflections at the boundaries between the two domains. This will allow us to investigate diverse types of Earth materials using frequencies that are much closer to those of seismic waves propagating through the Earth than previously possible. The novel laboratory enables experimentation under highly controlled conditions. A broad range of long-standing problems in wave propagation and imaging that have eluded Earth scientists and physicists for decades will be addressed. Fine scale heterogeneity, porosity and fluid saturation in real Earth media result in complex frequency-dependent amplitude and phase responses that we can characterize in the laboratory. Synthetically produced complex models can be used in wavefield-focussing experiments and to achieve complete elastic time-reversal for the first time ever. We will study coda waves that can be indicative of slight changes in stress fields before catastrophic fracturing and that might provide pre-cursory signs of earthquakes. Finally, the laboratory is highly relevant to applications such as non-destructive testing, medical imaging and lithotripsy.

Mots-clés : wave propagation,physical modelling,immersive experimentation,scattering of elastic waves
Projet ERC : EVOLPROOF (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Environmental Biology, Ecology and Evolution
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 : 1485731.71 €

There is a threat that evolutionary responses can render vaccines ineffective, as illustrated by the emergence of the increasingly virulent Marek Disease Virus strains in poultry following vaccination campaigns. Assessing the ‘evolution-proof’ nature of vaccines targeting human viruses is challenging because it requires an understanding of the epidemiology, the within-host ecology and the evolutionary potential of the virus. To date, most investigations into the spread of vaccine-resistant strains are theoretical and are rarely constrained by data. We propose a novel alliance between evolutionary ecology and clinical research to assess the risk of vaccines selecting for resistant or virulent strains. Human papillomaviruses (HPV) and their vaccines provide an ideal study system. However, the scope of the project is wider and encompasses other DNA viruses. The project is divided into three parts. In Part A, we will decipher HPV within-host dynamics in genital infections. By combining mathematical modelling and longitudinal patient data, we will be able to parameterise within-host models and compare them. In Part B, we will jointly analyse host, virus and genital microbiota diversity using a community ecology approach to understand the infectious process. These results will be integrated into evolutionary epidemiology models allowing for diverse infections. In Part C, we will estimate virus substitution rates and use the results from Parts 1 and 2 to develop a multilevel analysis of HPV evolution in response to vaccination. We will also tackle more general questions related to the evolution of the virulence of human oncoviruses. A major asset of the project is the collection of clinical data in order to address a major public health issue using ideas and methods from evolutionary ecology. This will set a new agenda for the study of human viral infections and establish a perennial leading research group in Europe.

Mots-clés : virulence,vaccination,human papillomavirus,cancer
Projet ERC : AUROMYC (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Physiology in Health, Disease and Ageing
Entité participante : University of Leeds — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 564162.5 €

There is an intense interest in the function of human Myc proteins that stems from their pervasive role in the genesis of human tumors. A large body of evidence has established that expression levels of one of three closely related Myc proteins are enhanced in the majority of all human tumors and that multiple tumor entities depend on elevated Myc function, arguing that targeting Myc will have significant therapeutic efficacy. This hope awaits clinical confirmation, since the strategies that are currently under investigation to target Myc function or expression have yet to enter the clinic. Myc proteins are global regulators of transcription, but their mechanism of action is poorly understood. Myc proteins are highly unstable in normal cells and rapidly turned over by the ubiquitin/proteasome system. In contrast, they are stabilized in tumor cells. Work by us and by others has shown that stabilization of Myc is required for tumorigenesis and has identified strategies to destabilize Myc for tumor therapy. This work has also led to the surprising observation that the N-Myc protein, which drives neuroendocrine tumorigenesis, is stabilized by association with the Aurora-A kinase and that clinically available Aurora-A inhibitors can dissociate the complex and destabilize N-Myc. Aurora-A has not previously been implicated in transcription, prompting us to use protein crystallography, proteomics and shRNA screening to understand its interaction with N-Myc. We have now identified a novel protein complex of N-Myc and Aurora-A that provides an unexpected and potentially groundbreaking insight into Myc function. We have also solved the crystal structure of the N-Myc/Aurora-A complex. Collectively, both findings open new strategies to target Myc function for tumor therapy.

Mots-clés : tumor biology,cancer,oncogenes,neuroendocrine tumors
Projet ERC : TriVolve (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Proof of concept grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Cellular, Developmental and Regenerative Biology
Entité participante : University of Bremen — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

There is an urgent need for an agricultural revolution to generate climate-smart cultivars, which combine proven qualities with novel traits that adapt crop plants to extremes, including severe heat and drought periods. Novel breeding technologies can make the difference to enable farmers to achieve high yields with resilient crops and thus secure the nutrition for the world population. In the framework of the ERC Consolidator Grant "Building and bypassing polyspermy barriers" we have discovered that plant egg cells can fuse with two sperm to give rise to offspring with three instead of two parents, one mother and two fathers. Our unprecedented result is a game changer in the field of plant reproduction. It can lead to a new plant breeding strategy with economic benefits expected to positively affect the social welfare of farmers as well as upstream and downstream industries related to the agricultural value chain. Three-parent crosses can transform plant breeding at different levels: First, the inheritance of genetic material from three rather than two parents allows to instantly combine beneficial traits of three cultivars thereby tremendously speeding up breeding processes. Second, three-parent crosses bypass a hybridization barrier (2), which constitutes a major limitation for regular plant breeding approaches. Third, three-parent crosses can be used to increase the number of chromosomes, a process referred to as polyploidization. Natural or technically-induced polyploidizations constitute a major factor for yield increase. The translation of three-parent crosses from the model plant Arabidopsis to crop plants using sugar beet as an experimental prototype at the premises of a breeder, and the transfer of this new breeding technology into commercial exploitation are two goals of the project TriVolve.

Mots-clés : urgent need for climate adapted crops,plants can have three parents,three parent crosses are an innovative breeding technology,proof of concept for the application of the technology in major crop plants