Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : REFINE (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Earth system science
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 : 3500000.0 €

The scientific objective of REFINE is to understand and quantify the physical, biological and biogeochemical processes controlling the biological carbon pump, a key component of the oceanic CO2 sequestration. The oceanic twilight zone (TZ), which is located between the depths of 100 and 1000 m and represents 20% of the ocean's volume, is where these processes occur. Yet the TZ is not properly sampled during most ship-based oceanographic cruises and, because of its depths, it escapes satellite remote sensing. Hence the TZ is one of the least known environments on Earth. The functioning of the TZ is highly dependent on the flux of matter and energy coming from the overlying well-lit euphotic zone (EZ). I have developed the REFINE ground-breaking, robotic-based approach to address the physical, biological and biogeochemical linkages between the EZ and the TZ, with special emphasis on the roles of phyto and zooplankton communities. I will implement REFINE through the following four main coordinated actions: • Development of a new generation of multidisciplinary vertically profiling floats, uniquely able to robotically address phyto and zooplankton community composition. • Achievement of ~3 years robotic-based process studies in five oceanic zones, representative of the diversity of biogeochemical conditions and responses to climate change in the global ocean, over a continuum of temporal scales ranging from diel to interannual. • In-depth analysis of the unique REFINE dataset to perform carbon flux budgets within the TZ, and understand the physical and plankton-driven mechanisms involved in the EZ-TZ linkage and their impacts on the resulting fate of organic carbon and fluxes to ocean depths. • Upscaling of regional processes to the global ocean through the use of artificial intelligence methods, in particular by taking advantage of multisource observations from REFINE robots and earth observation satellites.

Mots-clés : biological carbon pump,oceanic co2 sequestration,robotic observations,remote sensing,phytoplankton
Projet ERC : SEACHANGE (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2792484.89 €

The seas are changing. Marine conservation seeks to protect valuable habitats but the pristine state of marine ecosystem functioning and biodiversity – that is, the system as it operated before there was any large scale human impact – is conjectural. Conservation management strategies are often based on highly altered ecosystems where the degree of human-induced change is unknown. In SEACHANGE, we propose a structured and systematic approach to the reconstruction of marine ecosystem baselines to quantify the impact of anthropogenic cultural transitions on marine biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. SEACHANGE will address two key questions: 1) What was the nature of long-term changes in prehistoric marine biodiversity and ecosystem functioning over a 3000-year period in NW Europe and the degree of human impact associated with major socioeconomic changes across the Mesolithic-Neolithic boundary? 2) What has been the scale and rate of marine biodiversity loss and changes to ecosystem functioning as a result of fishing intensity and marine habitat loss during the last 2000 years (including the Industrial Transition) in the North Sea and around Iceland, eastern Australia and the west Antarctic Peninsula? To address these questions we will analyse: 1) absolutely-dated annually-resolved bivalve shell series (“sclerochronologies”); 2) marine sediment cores; 3) archaeological midden (waste) materials including shells and bones. We will date these samples precisely and undertake zooarchaeological and palaeoecological, stable isotope geochemical and environmental DNA/DNA metabarcoding analyses. We will compare the data with historical and archival sources, and we will generate numerical ecosystem simulations. We will identify how depleted the current marine environment is compared with that before large scale human impact and what measures are needed, and how long will it take, for marine biodiversity to recover.

Mots-clés : marine palaeoevironments,holocene,marine ecosystems,marine biodiversity,environmental change,cultural transition,sclerochronology,marine environmental archaeology,midden
Projet ERC : VIA LACTEA (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Universe sciences
Entité participante : Leibniz Association — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : LG
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 0.0 €

The second data release of the Gaia satellite has revealed much complexity in the structure and kinematics of stars in the Milky Way than previously appreciated. In the disc, Gaia has shown that our Galaxy is still enduring the effects of a collision that set millions of stars moving like ripples on a pond. In the stellar halo, the data uncovered a large single debris structure pointing to a massive accretion event 10 billion years ago, at a time when the disc was in its infancy. Our basic assumptions of dynamical equilibrium and axisymmetry at the basis of nearly all mathematical models of the Galaxy are now falling short to make further progress on our inference on the Galaxy’s formation or the distribution of dark matter. Understanding the detailed time-dependent non-axisymmetric phase-space structure of the Galaxy would open new pathways to understand its detailed accretion history, potentially dating its most major perturbations. This proposal aims to explore the deep coupling between the stellar halo and the Milky Way disc and bulge, to gain new insights on the formation history of the Milky Way through its most major accretion events through a number of state-of-the-art computing techniques. Study 1 will look into studying the formation of the inner-halo through a combination of cosmological genetically modified (constrained) simulations and idealised simulations to constrain the mass and accretion time of the Gaia-Sausage progenitor galaxy (and its potential satellite population which came with it) as well as its impact on the formation of the ``thick disc'' and growth of the Galaxy past z~3-2. Study 2 will look into the impact of known satellites on the dynamical and chemical and age populations’ evolution of the Milky Way using both cosmological/isolated hydrodynamical simulations and idealised numerical N-body simulations, particularly focusing on the role of the Sagittarius dwarf in seeding the perturbations in the disc we see today.

Mots-clés : cosmological hydrodynamical simulations,n body simulations,gaia,galactic archeology,galactic dynamics,chemo dynamics,sagittarius,large magellanic clouds,the disc,the bulge,stellar halo
Projet ERC : FAHMRRR (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Human Mind and Its Complexity
Entité participante : Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : HU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1154438.75 €

The sentences: “I have written a proposal for the ERC” and “It is for the ERC that I have written a proposal” mean the same, but they have a different focus structure. A focused element like “It is for the ERC” indicates that alternatives are relevant for the interpretation of the utterance. Hence, the sentence expresses, in addition to its literal content, that the proposal is not for the NSF or the German Research Foundation. The alternative set is a theoretical construct from formal semantics, but a number of researchers, myself included, have shown that it is also cognitively real. I propose to further investigate representation, retrieval and recall of an alternative set. First, I will ask the novel question if the decision to focus a phrase activates alternatives in the speaker’s mind. I will explore this with behavioural measures and event-related brain potentials (ERPs). This question brings together two areas of speech production which are rarely considered side by side: conceptualisation and lexical access. Second, I will examine the neural representation of focus alternatives with neuroimaging. While there is convincing evidence for the cognitive reality of focus alternatives, we do not know how this is reflected in the brain. Finally, I will explore individual differences in processing focus information, using large-scale regression analyses. The aim is to understand which abilities enable a human language user to optimally use the focus information provided by the linguistic input. The project’s innovative potential lies both in its questions and in the combination of methods: neuroimaging, ERPs, a range of behavioral measures, and individual differences approaches, which, in combination, will critically advance our understanding of the cognitive and neural basis of processing information structural cues. The findings will be of interest not only to linguists and cognitive scientists, but also to language teachers and people who use language as a tool.

Mots-clés : linguistic pragmatics,information structure,focus,focus alternatives,language production,language comprehension,individual differences,brain imaging
Projet ERC : EvolSexChrom (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Advanced 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 : 2500000.0 €

The sex chromosomes of plants and animals often contain large non-recombining regions due to a stepwise cessation of recombination generating “evolutionary strata” of genetic differentiation. The reasons for the extension of recombination suppression beyond sex-determining genes remain unclear. Sexual antagonism, involving the linkage to sex-determining genes of alleles beneficial in only one sex, is the prevailing hypothesis, as this explanation is both theoretically plausible and attractive. However, decades of research have unearthed little evidence to support this hypothesis. Furthermore, I have shown that chromosomes involved in sexual compatibility in systems lacking male and female functions can nevertheless display a stepwise suppression of recombination beyond mating-compatibility genes. Thus, evolutionary strata can evolve without sexual antagonism. Alternative hypotheses, such as neutral rearrangements, epigenetic changes associated with transposable elements and the sheltering of deleterious alleles accumulating near non-recombining regions, must thus be seriously considered. I propose to use a synergic combination of different approaches and biological systems to refine and test these hypotheses, to broaden the theory of sex-related chromosome evolution, and, more generally, of the evolution of supergenes (linked allelic combinations). I will use mathematical modeling to test hypothesis plausibility and generate predictions. I will use comparative and population genomic approaches to test predictions, and an innovative experimental evolution approach with functional manipulations to assess the ability of the proposed mechanisms to generate strata. The EvolSexChrom project will challenge the current theory, opening up new avenues of research and potentially creating a paradigm shift in the dynamic research field focusing on the evolution of sex-related chromosomes and other supergenes, relevant to diverse traits and organisms.

Mots-clés : sex chromosomes,mating type evolution,supergene,recombination suppression,evolutionary,strata,chromosomal rearrangement,genomic decay,genomic analyses,microbial experiments,theoretical models,transposable elements,methylation,population genomics,fungi
Projet ERC : CohoSing (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Mathematics
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 : 1466124.0 €

The singularities of algebraic varieties and, more generally, Noetherian schemes, tend to be reflected in the structural properties of cohomology. The goal of the project is to study this interplay, with a particular focus on positive and mixed characteristic---arithmetic settings in which the recently developed perfectoid techniques are especially relevant. The project highlights several interrelated conjectures, for instance, purity for flat cohomology, that would further our understanding of basic properties of Noetherian schemes. It proposes to develop the aforementioned interplay further by searching for invariants of singularities in cohomology.

Mots-clés : cohomology,perfectoid spaces,purity,resolution of singularities,weil conjectures
Projet ERC : PROVEC (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Physiology in Health, Disease and Ageing
Entité participante : Max Planck Society — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : MPG
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2205875.0 €

The skeletal system and its vasculature form a functional unit with great relevance in health, regeneration, and disease. Our recent work has provided fundamental insights into the organization of the bone vasculature in mouse, its changes during aging, the heterogeneity and functional specialization of bone capillaries and endothelial cells, the regulation of these properties by Notch and hypoxia-inducible factor signaling, and the crosstalk with osteoblast lineage cells. Most importantly, we found that the manipulation of ECs in the aging animal can trigger the expansion of osteoprogenitors and thereby induce bone formation. PROVEC will now systemically identify and characterize endothelial cell subpopulations, their gene expression and functional properties in the healthy, aging, diseased and regenerating skeletal system. Preclinical models will establish whether endothelial cells are involved in the response to therapeutic treatments aiming at osteoblasts or osteoclasts, or if the modulation of ECs alone is sufficient to generate beneficial effects. Finally, PROVEC will investigate whether cultured mouse and human ECs can be endowed with beneficial properties to enhance bone formation in 3D organoid cultures and after transplantation into mice, which will be monitored by imaging in living animals. To achieve its ambitions aims, PROVEC will use a powerful combination of mouse genetics, disease models, genetic fate mapping, RNA-seq and single cell sequencing, computational biology, confocal and 2-photon microscopy, micro-CT imaging, pharmacological treatments, and cell biology methods to establish if and how vascular endothelial cells can be used to increase bone mineral density in preclinical models. The successful completion of PROVEC would be highly relevant for diseases such as osteoporosis, which affects around 27.5 million patients in the EU, generates annual costs of about 37 billion Euros, and for which we currently lack appropriate treatments.
Projet ERC : LUCKY STAR (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Universe sciences
Entité participante : Observatoire de Paris — Pays : France — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : Observatoire Paris
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1773750.0 €

The solar system beyond Neptune’s contains largely unaltered material from the primordial circum-solar disk. It also kept the memory of the early planetary migrations, and thus contains essential information on the origin and evolution of our planetary system. Here I propose to study the Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs) using the stellar occultation technique. It consists in observing the passage of remote TNOs in front of those “Lucky Stars”, that reveal shapes, atmosphere and rings of bodies from sub-km to thousand-km in size. Very few teams in the world master this method. The European-led network that I coordinate is now leader in predictions, instrumentation, observations and analysis related to stellar occultations, with innovative approaches and unprecedented results. In the last decade, our group led the field by discovering rings around the asteroid-like object Chariklo, detecting sub-km TNOs and drastic variations of Pluto’s atmospheric pressure. Based on those noteworthy discoveries and unique skills of ours, I will coordinate the following work packages: (1) Rings around small bodies - Understand the newly found Chariklo’s rings, tackle the theory of rings’ origins and evolutions around small bodies, discover new ring systems around other bodies. (2) Very small, sub-km TNOs and Oort Cloud objects - Constrain the collisional history of our early outer solar system, and possibly detect Oort Cloud objects. (3) Pluto’s atmosphere – Explore Pluto’s atmosphere and its atypical seasonal cycle, search for atmospheres around other TNOs. (4) Explore specific, large TNOs – Provide their sizes, shapes, albedos and densities. These programs are timely in view of NASA/New Horizons Pluto flyby in July 2015, and the ESA/GAIA mission expected to provide a greatly improved astrometric catalog release in 2016. Most of the budget will be dedicated to human power to conduct observations and their analysis, plus the associated travel and telescope time expenses.

Mots-clés : pluto,rings,trans neptunian objects,oort cloud
Projet ERC : LUCKY STAR (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Universe sciences
Entité participante : Sorbonne Université — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : Sorbonne U
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 650000.0 €

The solar system beyond Neptune’s contains largely unaltered material from the primordial circum-solar disk. It also kept the memory of the early planetary migrations, and thus contains essential information on the origin and evolution of our planetary system. Here I propose to study the Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs) using the stellar occultation technique. It consists in observing the passage of remote TNOs in front of those “Lucky Stars”, that reveal shapes, atmosphere and rings of bodies from sub-km to thousand-km in size. Very few teams in the world master this method. The European-led network that I coordinate is now leader in predictions, instrumentation, observations and analysis related to stellar occultations, with innovative approaches and unprecedented results. In the last decade, our group led the field by discovering rings around the asteroid-like object Chariklo, detecting sub-km TNOs and drastic variations of Pluto’s atmospheric pressure. Based on those noteworthy discoveries and unique skills of ours, I will coordinate the following work packages: (1) Rings around small bodies - Understand the newly found Chariklo’s rings, tackle the theory of rings’ origins and evolutions around small bodies, discover new ring systems around other bodies. (2) Very small, sub-km TNOs and Oort Cloud objects - Constrain the collisional history of our early outer solar system, and possibly detect Oort Cloud objects. (3) Pluto’s atmosphere – Explore Pluto’s atmosphere and its atypical seasonal cycle, search for atmospheres around other TNOs. (4) Explore specific, large TNOs – Provide their sizes, shapes, albedos and densities. These programs are timely in view of NASA/New Horizons Pluto flyby in July 2015, and the ESA/GAIA mission expected to provide a greatly improved astrometric catalog release in 2016. Most of the budget will be dedicated to human power to conduct observations and their analysis, plus the associated travel and telescope time expenses.

Mots-clés : pluto,rings,trans neptunian objects,oort cloud
Projet ERC : CoDeS (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Systems and communication engineering
Entité participante : Weizmann Institute of Science — Pays : Israël — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 3000000.0 €

The sophisticated electronic devices ubiquitous today are largely enabled by conversion of analog signals to digital through digital signal processing (DSP). DSP is also the enabler behind the deep learning revolution, which led to systems with unprecedented performance. However, DSP comes at a cost. Internet traffic has exceeded Zettabytes. The conventional approach to DSP and machine learning is to acquire all data possible and build systems that are capable of massive training and parallel processing in order to extract the relevant information out of huge data sets. Acquiring, storing, processing and communicating pervasive massive datasets generated at an ever-increasing speed requires huge amounts of power, hardware, and physical space. In this proposal, we put forth an ambitious goal: introducing a paradigm shift in acquisition and learning to enable systems capable of low-rate, low-power, wideband sensing, efficient training, super-resolution, and flexible operations. Our approach is based on acquiring and processing only the information needed for the required task. We achieve this goal by introducing the new concept of jointly designing all system components, where the underlying structure in the data and the specific required task are taken into account throughout the design. Realizing this new scientific frontier will entail (1) developing new theoretical frameworks of sampling theory, information theory, learning theory and quantization theory of sub-sampled channels where sampling and information are treated jointly and depend on the system task; this will form the basis for (2) the development of novel mixed analog-digital hardware prototypes that enable new technology paradigms, such as wireless ultrasound systems and joint radar-communication platforms, and (3) a broad-range of scientific and clinical applications. A successful outcome can revolutionize the way signals are acquired and processed and have a profound impact on multitude applications.

Mots-clés : sampling theory