Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : ALEXANDRIA (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Computer science and informatics
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 : 2430140.0 €

Mathematical proofs have always been prone to error. Today, proofs can be hundreds of pages long and combine results from many specialisms, making them almost impossible to check. One solution is to deploy modern verification technology. Interactive theorem provers have demonstrated their potential as vehicles for formalising mathematics through achievements such as the verification of the Kepler Conjecture. Proofs done using such tools reach a high standard of correctness. However, existing theorem provers are unsuitable for mathematics. Their formal proofs are unreadable. They struggle to do simple tasks, such as evaluating limits. They lack much basic mathematics, and the material they do have is difficult to locate and apply. ALEXANDRIA will create a proof development environment attractive to working mathematicians, utilising the best technology available across computer science. Its focus will be the management and use of large-scale mathematical knowledge, both theorems and algorithms. The project will employ mathematicians to investigate the formalisation of mathematics in practice. Our already substantial formalised libraries will serve as the starting point. They will be extended and annotated to support sophisticated searches. Techniques will be borrowed from machine learning, information retrieval and natural language processing. Algorithms will be treated similarly: ALEXANDRIA will help users find and invoke the proof methods and algorithms appropriate for the task. ALEXANDRIA will provide (1) comprehensive formal mathematical libraries; (2) search within libraries, and the mining of libraries for proof patterns; (3) automated support for the construction of large formal proofs; (4) sound and practical computer algebra tools. ALEXANDRIA will be based on legible structured proofs. Formal proofs should be not mere code, but a machine-checkable form of communication between mathematicians.

Mots-clés : interactive theorem proving,proof assistants,formalized mathematics,verification,mathematical knowledge management
Projet ERC : Transitions (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Mathematics
Entité participante : Tel Aviv University — Pays : Israël — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : TAU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1834375.0 €

Mathematical statistical physics has seen spectacular progress in recent years. Existing problems which were previously unattainable were solved, opening a way to approach some of the classical open questions in the field. The proposed research focuses on phenomena of universality, phase transitions and the effect of disorder in physical systems of large size, identifying several fundamental questions at the interface of Statistical Physics and Probability Theory. One circle of questions concerns the fluctuation behavior of random surfaces, where the PI recently resolved the 1975 delocalization conjecture of Brascamp-Lieb-Lebowitz. The PI proposes to establish some of the long-standing universality conjectures for random surfaces, including their scaling limit, localization properties and behavior of integer-valued surfaces. A second circle of questions regards specific two-dimensional models on which there are exact predictions in the physics literature concerning their critical properties which remain elusive from the mathematical standpoint. The PI proposes several ways to advance the state of the art. The PI further proposes to investigate the dependence of two-dimensional phenomena on the underlying planar graph structure, in the spirit of conjectures of Benjamini to which the PI recently supplied significant support. A third circle of questions revolves around random-field models. Imry-Ma predicted in 1975, and Aizenman-Wehr proved in 1989, that an arbitrarily weak random field can eliminate the magnetization phase transition of systems in low dimensions including the spin O(n) models. Quantitative aspects of this phenomenon remain unclear, in the mathematical and physical literature. Following recent substantial progress of the PI in the Ising model case, a quantitative analysis of the phenomenon for the classical models is proposed. Further emphasis is placed on the problem of finding new methods for proving the breaking of continuous symmetries.

Mots-clés : random surfaces,disorder effects,universality,localization,delocalization,two dimensional critical phenomena,continuous symmetries
Projet ERC : HEAL-BY-MIRNA (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Ministry of Health — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 149750.0 €

Mature B cell neoplasias include most of Non-Hodgkin Lymphomas (NHL), such as Diffuse Large B Cell Lymphomas and Burkitt Lymphoma and also B cell Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia. It is estimated that about 60000-80000 new cases of mature B cell neoplasias are diagnosed every year in Europe. About 60% of NHL present with aggressive forms, and need immediate therapeutic action. The most common choice of treatment for mature B cell neoplasia is chemotherapy, and particularly the multidrug R-CHOP, but a fraction of the cancers either are refractory to these therapeutic interventions or relapse after treatment. Indeed, NHL is the cause of close to 26,000 deaths per year in Europe. Therefore, alternative therapeutic targets are imperative to replace or complement the current approaches. microRNAs (miRNAs) have arisen as extremely promising therapeutic tools in a number of diseases, including cancer. We have identified a miRNA specific of mature B cells whose expression is lost in mature B cell neoplasias. We found that re-introducing this miRNA in lymphoma cells in animal xenograft models leads to a dramatic block of tumor growth and extends mouse survival. Our studies show that this miRNA is therapeutically efficient not only in the form of lentiviral vectors but also as a synthetic miRNA mimic. Likewise, both intratumoral and systemic, intravenous delivery of miRNA mimic have yielded positive regression results. In addition, established lymphoma cell lines as well as primary mature B cell lymphomas have proved sensitive to miRNA treatment. Therefore, we propose to take to proof of concept the idea that miRNA replacement is an efficient therapeutic strategy for the treatment of mature B cell lymphomas. With this HEAL-BY-MIRNA proposal we aim at moving forward this idea to a stage where it can be exploited to have social impact and to become a marketable product.

Mots-clés : mirna,microrna replacement,chemotherapy,non hodgkin lymphoma,germinal centres
Projet ERC : EDWEL (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Individuals, Markets and Organisations
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 : 1426418.0 €

Measurement of consumer welfare is central to economic evaluations. It underlies calculation of price-indices, formulation of tax policies, and environmental and industrial regulation. But existing measurement methods rely on restrictive assumptions about consumer preferences, leading to potentially incorrect conclusions regarding policy-impacts. The proposed project aims to make fundamental contributions to empirical welfare analysis by developing nonparametric approaches, which would avoid such assumptions and thus produce reliable welfare estimates from micro-data. The emphasis will be on welfare-evaluation of price/quality changes in the under-researched but common real-life setting of discrete-choice, e.g., the impact of tuition subsidies for college entrants, fare-hikes for passengers and access to new channels for TV viewers. The project will cover (i) discrete choice with multinomial/ordered/non-exclusive alternatives, (ii) random coefficient choice-models, (iii) settings where one’s choice affects one’s peers’ utilities, and (iv) dynamic choice under uncertainty such as durable-purchase. Welfare analyses in situations (ii)-(iv) are previously unexplored problems and represent ambitious undertakings. Situation (i) has been analyzed only under strong, unsubstantiated assumptions, like quasilinear preferences and extreme valued errors. The key insight driving the project is that welfare calculations require less information than what is needed to identify underlying preference parameters. The project will also develop methods to overcome common data problems like interval-reporting and endogeneity of income. The theoretical results will be complemented by software codes in Stata/R which can be readily used by practitioners. Given the ubiquity of welfare analysis in economic applications and its use in non-academic settings such as merger-analysis, damage calculations, etc., the project is likely to have a substantial impact both in and beyond the academia.

Mots-clés : cost benefit analysis,money metric welfare,discrete choice,unobserved heterogeneity,non parametric identification,multinomial choice,peer effects,dynamic choice
Projet ERC : EVALVE (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Physiology in Health, Disease and Ageing
Entité participante : Centre européen de recherche en biologie et en médecine — Pays : France — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : CERBM
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1201128.14 €

Mechanical forces are fundamental to cardiovascular development and physiology. The interactions between mechanical forces and endothelial cells are mediated by mechanotransduction feedback loops. My lab is interested in understanding how hemodynamic forces modulate cardiovascular function and morphogenesis. Overall, our recent work is unraveling the biological links between mechanical forces, mechanotransduction and endothelial cell responses. The heart beats 2.6 billion times in a human lifetime and heart valves are amongst the most mechanically challenged structures of the body. The cardiac valves are made of endocardial cells (EdCs) and extracellular matrix components. Most valve diseases have their origins in embryogenesis, either as signs of abnormal developmental processes or the aberrant re-expression of fetal gene programs normally quiescent in adulthood. This project is directed towards the elucidation of the biomechanical mechanism of mechanotransduction at the subcellular and molecular level and in addressing how EdCs integrate this information to form and maintain a functional cardiac valve. We will identify the mechanosensors at work in EdCs and their roles during cardiac valve development and repair. To do so, we will implement unique optical methodologies the lab has pioneered to characterize endocardial mechanotransduction: 1) Optical tweezing combined with mechanical stress reporters to test the mechanosensitivity of EdCs; 2) High resolution live microscopy and mathematical modeling to quantify mechanical forces; 3) 3D cell lineage studies to understand how cells respond and organize during pathological valve development. We will also use high-throughput mRNA- and ChIP-sequencing to characterize the transcriptional network activated by forces. When completed this proposal will shed light on a critical, but little explored, aspect of congenital valve defects and will be useful for identifying new targets for therapeutic interventions.
Projet ERC : EVALVE (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Physiology in Health, Disease and Ageing
Entité participante : Imperial College London — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 798871.86 €

Mechanical forces are fundamental to cardiovascular development and physiology. The interactions between mechanical forces and endothelial cells are mediated by mechanotransduction feedback loops. My lab is interested in understanding how hemodynamic forces modulate cardiovascular function and morphogenesis. Overall, our recent work is unraveling the biological links between mechanical forces, mechanotransduction and endothelial cell responses. The heart beats 2.6 billion times in a human lifetime and heart valves are amongst the most mechanically challenged structures of the body. The cardiac valves are made of endocardial cells (EdCs) and extracellular matrix components. Most valve diseases have their origins in embryogenesis, either as signs of abnormal developmental processes or the aberrant re-expression of fetal gene programs normally quiescent in adulthood. This project is directed towards the elucidation of the biomechanical mechanism of mechanotransduction at the subcellular and molecular level and in addressing how EdCs integrate this information to form and maintain a functional cardiac valve. We will identify the mechanosensors at work in EdCs and their roles during cardiac valve development and repair. To do so, we will implement unique optical methodologies the lab has pioneered to characterize endocardial mechanotransduction: 1) Optical tweezing combined with mechanical stress reporters to test the mechanosensitivity of EdCs; 2) High resolution live microscopy and mathematical modeling to quantify mechanical forces; 3) 3D cell lineage studies to understand how cells respond and organize during pathological valve development. We will also use high-throughput mRNA- and ChIP-sequencing to characterize the transcriptional network activated by forces. When completed this proposal will shed light on a critical, but little explored, aspect of congenital valve defects and will be useful for identifying new targets for therapeutic interventions.
Projet ERC : MechanoSystems (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Cellular, Developmental and Regenerative Biology
Entité participante : Institute of Photonic Sciences — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : ICFO;ICFO-CERCA
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1829288.0 €

Mechanical forces are ubiquitous signals that provide critical and dynamic information about the environments around cells and organisms. Signals about touch, sound, and movements are transmitted to specialized mechanoreceptors but also deform the neuronal cytoskeleton of the central nervous system, particularly when strong forces are involved. Although failures to sense and cope with stresses are linked to human diseases including peripheral neuropathies and dementias, little is known about the connections between biomechanics and disease. A major reason for this gap is the technical challenge of detecting forces and deformations within a living cell or organism. Given the poor prognosis associated with neurodegenerative diseases, spinal cord injury and neuropathies, there is a strong need to develop a better understanding of neuronal mechanics. In the proposed work, we will define the changes in protein mechanics that contribute to pathological transformations in mechanosensation and mechanoprotection by developing a systems-level understanding of these processes in Caenorhabditis elegans. My lab will exploit our expertise in force application using microfluidic devices and state-of-the-art imaging to visualize mechanical forces in live cells during mechanosensation (Aim 1). We will integrate our observations with mathematical modeling to yield insight into how changes in material properties influence cell shape and physiology during aging of an organism (Aim 2). Over the long term, we will develop new strategies to limit mechanical damage in aging neurons using small protein chaperones and design a prosthetic optogenetic synaptic-transmission system to maintain neuronal signaling in diseased conditions (Aim 3). Broadly, I envision that the knowledge and tools designed in this work will pave the way for the development of future therapies to treat currently intractable diseases that involve changes in nerve-cell function on the molecular and systems levels.

Mots-clés : cytoskeleton,mechanobiology,mechanosensation,c elegans,fret
Projet ERC : enjulii (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Proof of concept grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and processes engineering
Entité participante : Friedrich Schiller University Jena — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : FSU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Mechanical performance and consumer product safety have been major drivers for glass research and innovation. Strengthened glass products are omnipresent in daily life, from rooftop windows and automotive windshields to solar modules, partition walls and covers for handheld electronic devices. However, thermal strengthening as today’s most widespread method for enhancing the strength and reliability of glasses has reached maturity, leaving fundamental restrictions in terms of applicable glass thickness and type. These limitations do not only prevent the further development of sustainable and efficient lightweight glass structures, but also exclude the process from many of the most prolific specialty glass applications. The present proposal targets market readiness and commercialisation of a novel post-processing method for thin-walled glass products which overcomes the limitations of thermal strengthening by achieving a tenfold decrease in accessible glass thickness and/or coefficient of thermal expansion. By this, we will break ground for applying an otherwise intriguingly efficient technology to thin-walled glass products and glass compositions which were previously outside of the process’s capabilities. This will not only enable significant reductions of embodied energy, CO2 and product weight, but also lead to new opportunities in the strengthening of non-sheet glass products, e.g., fibres, rods and tubes on fields such as pharmaceutical packaging, injectors, functional lighting and illumination, and specialty glass substrates.

Mots-clés : glass,post treatment,post processing,processing,mechanical properties,thermal processing,strength of materials
Projet ERC : NaTuRe (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Condensed matter physics
Entité participante : Institute of Photonic Sciences — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : ICFO;ICFO-CERCA
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2503459.0 €

Mechanical resonators based on carbon nanotubes are truly exceptional sensors of mass and force. In the last years, my group revealed these outstanding figures of merit of nanotube resonators. Here, the project NaTuRe will take advantage of these sensing capabilities to study physical phenomena in fascinating regimes that have not been explored thus far. Specifically, I will address three directions with major scientific interests: 1- I propose to perform electron spin resonance (ESR) measurements on single molecules using nanotube resonators. The goal is to see whether nature can provide molecular electronic spins endowed with long dephasing time. For this, we will measure molecular spins in a regime where the magnetic noise of the environment is reduced to an unprecedented level. In case of success, this work could open avenues in quantum science by allowing experiments not possible with the electronic spins of nitrogen-vacancy centres in diamond. 2- My team will carry out nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) measurements on single nuclear spins. We will also perform magnetic-resonance force microscopy in order to image these individual nuclear spins. Achieving the objectives proposed here will be an unprecedented success in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). 3- NaTuRe proposes a completely new experimental approach to investigate superfluidity. We will use a nanotube mechanical resonator to probe the superfluidity properties of helium-4 layers adsorbed onto the suspended nanotube. Our experimental approach will allow us to study various quantum phenomena in superfluidity of considerable interest and from a radically new perspective. NaTuRe is a highly-interdisciplinary project with possible implications in quantum science, opto-mechanics, nano-science, structural biology, and low-temperature physics.

Mots-clés : nanotube,single electronic spin,single nuclear spin,nanoscale superfluidity
Projet ERC : Frontiers in Design (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Individuals, Markets and Organisations
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 : 1644774.0 €

Mechanism design is the engineering side of economics. Research findings in this field have helped governments and practitioners worldwide design better institutions: auctions that are more profitable or efficient; labour markets that improve the match between employees and employers; and better ways to assign students to public schools. The cornerstone of mechanism design is the revelation principle, which provides a canonical class of mechanisms and turns the mechanism-selection problem (which a priori may appear unmanageable) to a constrained optimization problem. The standard mechanism design paradigm relies on three fundamental assumptions: 1. The designer of the institution—the principal—does not have any privileged information. 2. The principal chooses the mechanism and commits to it once and for all. 3. There is no interrelationship of the mechanism with outside markets. In addition, almost the entire mechanism design literature assumes that private information is unverifiable (soft). These assumptions often fail in today’s “big data” world: Firms (online retailers, insurance companies, banks) do have privileged—and often certifiable—information that may affect contractual terms they propose. Also, they interact repeatedly with the same agents and, as they learn about them, they attempt to change the terms by making personalized offers. Finally, often a mechanism—e.g. a government insurance program—interacts with private insurance markets. The proposed research aims at providing methods and foundations to design optimal mechanisms at precisely those highly relevant situations: 1. mechanism-design by an informed principal, 2. design of mechanisms and their transparency when the principal lacks commitment, 3. mechanism-design when an intervention interacts with markets. The latter part of the project aims to employ these cutting-edge tools to revisit the design of insurance markets.

Mots-clés : mechanism design,limited commitment,informed principal,certifiable information