Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : COCAN (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Mathematics
Entité participante : Technische Universität Berlin — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : TUB
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2297163.0 €

This proposal connects three areas that are considered distant from each other: computational complexity, algebraic geometry, and numerics. In the last decade, it became clear that the fundamental questions of computational complexity (P vs NP) should be studied in algebraic settings, linking them to problems in algebraic geometry. Recent progress on this challenging and very difficult questions led to surprising progress in computational invariant theory, which we want to explore thoroughly. We expect this to lead to solutions of computational problems in invariant theory that currently are considered infeasible. The complexity of Hilbert's null cone (the set of "singular objects'') appears of paramount importance here. These investigations will also shed new light on the foundational questions of algebraic complexity theory. As an essential new ingredient to achieve this, we will tackle the arising algebraic computational problems by means of approximate numeric computations, taking into account the concept of numerical condition. A related goal of the proposal is to develop a theory of efficient and numerically stable algorithms in algebraic geometry that reflects the properties of structured systems of polynomial equations, possibly with singularities. While there are various heuristics, a satisfactory theory so far only exists for unstructured systems over the complex numbers (recent solution of Smale's 17th problem), which seriously limits its range of applications. In this framework, the quality of numerical algorithms is gauged by a probabilistic analysis that shows small average (or smoothed) running time. One of the main challenges here consists of a probabilistic study of random structured polynomial systems. We will also develop and analyze numerical algorithms for finding or describing the set of real solutions, e.g., in terms of their homology.

Mots-clés : algebraic complexity theory,computational invariant theory,condition numbers,homotopy methods,probabilistic analysis of numerical algorithms
Projet ERC : watersplit (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Weizmann Institute of Science — Pays : Israël — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

This proposal describes a plan to prove the role of electrons’ spin in the photocatalyzed oxidation of water; reaction of two water molecules to form two hydrogen molecules and a single oxygen molecule in its triplet ground state. We found that the catalyst performance is affected by its chiral symmetry, or lack thereof. It is well known that the electrochemical and photoelectrochemical splitting of water requires a high overpotential and that it can be changed by the choice of catalyst; however, the origin of the overpotential was not fully understood. In addition, the artificial water splitting reaction is commonly hampered by the production of hydrogen peroxide, which reduces the hydrogen yield and acts as a strong oxidation agent that can damage the electrochemical cell. The proposed studies will build on our new results which suggest that the chirality of the photoanode material can reduce the overpotential for water splitting and enhance the reaction rate. We found that spin-polarized current causes a spin correlation between the two OH intermediates in the reaction. This spin correlation could both suppress production of hydrogen peroxide and enhance the formation rate of oxygen molecules in the triplet state, improving water splitting efficiency. This proposal describes a program in which we intend to build upon our finding from our research performed in the framework of our ERC project, and to prove the concept of spin controlled water splitting and thereby produce an efficient hydrogen producing cell.

Mots-clés : chiral molecules,spin,water splitting,water oxidation
Projet ERC : AIRSCAN (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Proof of concept grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Physiology in Health, Disease and Ageing
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 : 149526.0 €

This proposal draws on the extensive technical developments of Ad-G 323041 LOCATE to commercialise the know-how to build a low-cost aircraft with integrated aerial survey, filming and tracking technology capable of operating in low-infrastructure environments. These requirements are common to many applications and there is currently no affordable off-the-shelf solution. Our product is unique, providing a technologically-advanced integrated data collection system controlled by a single pilot. Modular technology enables buyers to select options relevant to their own operation and minimise start-up costs. With operating costs of approximately €30/hour, our product will make sophisticated aerial survey, filming and tracking accessible to researchers, NGOs, government and commercial operators, delivering impact through high-resolution, high-quality information at low cost for infrastructure survey (eg pipeline, rail/cabling and flood plain survey) and conservation (habitat change, wildlife density), land and habitat management (national parks, game reserves). This aerial survey platform fills a market niche between drones (limited by payload and range) and commercial operations (high cost, require infrastructure, lack of flexibility). We will: DOCUMENT the structural modifications and specification for fitting out the aircraft with the equipment payload specified; REFINE the on-board systems set-up and mission planning system; DOCUMENT the options for modular on-board technology; DEVELOP a costing model for building, equipping, fitting out and operating the aircraft and licensing of IP; UNDERTAKE market analysis and research and communicate with potential suppliers and users; PREPARE a comprehensive portfolio for uptake by potential commercial partners. The project team includes three aviation/industry members experienced in bringing innovative technologies to this market.

Mots-clés : research aircraft,aerial survey,conservation,habitat management,photogrammetry,lidar,aerial tracking,animal tracking
Projet ERC : NANOIMAGER (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : University of Oxford — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

This proposal focuses on activities that support the advancement of a novel compact optical microscope to the proof-of-concept stage. The microscope (“NanoImager”) is based on single-molecule fluorescence imaging; its development resulted from efforts to improve microscopes within the ERC project POLMACHINE. Single-molecule fluorescence is the most popular way of visualizing single molecules, especially in living cells; imaging-based microscopes are the most popular of fluorescence microscopes. However, there are few commercial single-molecule fluorescence microscopes; the existing ones are large, complex and expensive. In contrast, the NanoImager has the potential to be can be much smaller and affordable, while matching the high sensitivity, high temporal/spatial resolution, and stability of the larger microscopes. As such, the NanoImager can address large unmet needs in research, teaching, ultrasensitive analysis, and biomedical diagnostics, and open new applications, especially due to its robustness, portability, size and cost. To bring the Nanoimager closer to the market, we will develop an advanced prototype and explore opportunities for its commercialization. Specifically, we will build and test a prototype fully equipped with software for instrument control and data analysis; we will also work with early adopters to test the prototype and prepare it for the broader market. Finally, we will also perform business-related activities to explore routes for commercialization (from licencing to a spin-out) and clarify the IP landscape. The final outcomes of the project will be the improvement of our prototype up to commercial standards, a clear definition of the competitive and novel aspects of our technology, and an informed, leveraged decision regarding its route to the market.

Mots-clés : single molecule,fluorescence imaging,super resolution imaging,single molecule fluorescence microscopy
Projet ERC : ROGW (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Mathematics
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 : 1351375.0 €

This proposal focuses on establishing new relations between natural objects in symplectic geometry with other fields of mathematics including knot and representation theory and the theory of integrable systems. All of these relations are motivated by theoretical physics. The main objects of study are moduli spaces of pseudo-holomorphic maps giving rise to real and open Gromov-Witten invariants. The classical Gromov-Witten invariants were introduced by Gromov at the birth of symplectic topology giving rise to obstructions to symplectic embeddings. Their interpretation by Witten as the coefficients of a partition function of a field theory placed them in a new light : striking dualities understood in physics relate them to mathematical objects of completely different nature and on completely different manifolds. This has and continues to generate enormous amount of high-level research aimed at understanding these relations better. The proposed research concerns establishing such relations in the context of the recently introduced, by the PI and A. Zinger, real Gromov-Witten theory. In particular, it aims to determine the systems of differential equations governing the real Gromov-Witten theory, that parallel the KdV and Toda hierarchies in the classical case. We will further study the real Gromov-Witten theory of toric Calabi-Yau threefolds with the aim of establishing a connection with SO/Sp Chern-Simons theory and a real version of the remodeled mirror symmetry. Finally, we will seek to establish foundational results of open Gromov-Witten theory in a general context.

Mots-clés : real,open,gromov witten theory,symplectic geometry,integrable systems,knot theory,mirror symmetry
Projet ERC : MALIG (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, 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 : 883250.0 €

This proposal focuses on the mathematics of three cross-disciplinary, very active and deeply interlaced research themes: interacting particle systems with kinetic constraints, bootstrap percolation cellular automata and mixed order phase transitions. These topics belong to the fertile area of mathematics at the intersection of probability and mathematical statistical mechanics. They are also extremely important in physics. Indeed they are intimately connected to the fundamental problem of understanding the liquid-glass transition, one of the longstanding open questions in condensed matter physics. The funding of this project will allow the PI to lead a highly qualified team with complementary expertise. Such a diversity will allow a novel, interdisciplinary and potentially groundbreaking approach. Even if research on each one of the above topics has been lately quite lively, very few exchanges and little cross-fertilization occurred among them. One of our main goals is to overcome the barriers among the three different research communities and to explore the interfaces of these yet unconnected fields. We will open two novel and challenging chapters in the mathematics of interacting particle systems and cellular automata: interacting particle glassy systems and bootstrap percolation models with mixed order critical and discontinuous transitions. In order to achieve our groundbreaking goals we will have to go well beyond the present mathematical knowledge. We believe that the novel concepts and the unconventional approaches that we will develop will have a deep impact also in other areas including combinatorics, theory of randomized algorithms and complex systems. The scientific background and expertise of the PI, with original and groundbreaking contributions in each of the above topics and with a broad and clearcut vision of the mathematics of the proposed research as well as of the fundamental physical questions,make the PI the ideal leader of this project.

Mots-clés : interacting particle systems,bootstrap percolation,liquid glass transition,glassy dynamics,cellular automata,mathematical statistical mechanics
Projet ERC : HD-DittoGraph (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Neuroscience and Disorders of the Nervous System
Entité participante : Istituto Nazionale Genetica Molecolare — Pays : Italie — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : INGM
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 172500.0 €

This proposal is aimed at identifying the molecular mechanisms that have brought the human Huntington Disease-causing Huntingtin (Htt) exon 1, with its pure and unstable CAG repeat, to be shaped the way it is today. Specifically, we intend to screen for genetic elements affecting Htt repeat length instability in dividing and postmitotic neuronal cells. The novelty of our approach relies on the construction of a human embryonic stem (hES) cell platform that couples highly efficient CRISPR/Cas9 technology with genome-wide screenings and third generation sequencing, to test the contribution of thousands of unequivocally barcoded cis and trans modifiers on Htt exon 1 repeats instability. In Aim 1, we will test the contribution of cis-modifiers to repeat instability during multiple mitotic divisions, by generating a hES cell platform where we will subsequently introduce a barcoded donor library of different Htt exon 1 constructs, with different CAG and flanking sequences, at the Htt locus. In Aim 2 our hES cell platform will be implemented with inducible Cas9 elements and sgRNAs libraries to perform genome-wide loss and gain of function (LOF, GOF) screenings of trans-acting modifiers of repeat sequence and size. The sgRNAs will act as barcodes for the modifier genes, allowing to test their causative role on repeat size changes. In Aim 3, we will exploit the neurogenic potential of hES cells in our LOF and GOF platforms to identify Htt exon 1 repeat modifiers in differentiating striatal neurons. Candidate modifier genes will be individually validated and tested for their functional impact on gene networks by transcriptome analysis. In all approaches, third generation sequencing and ad hoc computational pipelines will allow the simultaneous identification of the repeat changes and their association to the corresponding modifiers. Overall, this research proposal is expected to provide key molecular and genetic insights into the process of Htt repeat expansion in human

Mots-clés : huntington s disease,cag repeats,stem cells,genome editing,crispr,cas9 technology,cell platform,third generation sequencing,high throughput screening
Projet ERC : SingStocDispDyn (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Mathematics
Entité participante : University of Edinburgh — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1920968.0 €

This proposal is concerned with the study of singular stochastic dispersive partial differential equations (PDEs), broadly interpreted, with stochastic forcing and / or random initial data. This is a young emerging field, attracting more and more attention. In recent years, we have witnessed outstanding advances in the theory of singular stochastic parabolic PDEs. Our understanding of the dispersive counterpart is, however, much poorer. The main objective of this proposal is to develop novel mathematical ideas and tools and fundamentally advance our understanding of singular stochastic dispersive PDEs by working on concrete examples of challenging open problems. Over the last ten years, there has been significant progress at the interface of dispersive PDEs and stochastic analysis and I have been one of the leading mathematicians in this development. In particular, my recent work on the three-dimensional stochastic nonlinear wave equation (NLW) with a quadratic nonlinearity has opened up new research horizons, which we will explore in this proposal. 1. We will investigate the well-posedness issue of the three-dimensional (damped) stochastic cubic NLW with an additive space-time white noise. The solution theory for the parabolic counterpart (the so-called stochastic quantisation equation) was settled by Hairer (2014). The corresponding question for the wave equation is one of the major open questions in this field. We will develop a paracontrolled approach to solve this challenging open problem. Moreover, we address other related problems of independent interest, including the two-dimensional hyperbolic sine-Gordon model, diffusive scaling limit of damped stochastic NLW and singular stochastic nonlinear Schrödinger dynamics. 2. We will also build a pathwise solution theory for stochastic dispersive PDEs with multiplicative noises by combining the Fourier restriction norm method and the rough path theory.
Projet ERC : PRAGMA (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Computer science and informatics
Entité participante : AGH University of Krakow — Pays : Pologne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : AGH UST
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1386290.0 €

This proposal is in the area of computational social choice, an area on the intersection of computer science and economics. We study multiwinner elections, with a focus on a pragmatic approach. Our goal is to provide a principled framework for applying multiwinner voting in various settings that may appear in real-life (ranging from small-scale elections in various institutions, through participatory budgeting settings, to applications directly within computer science). In particular, we are interested in: (a) designing new, fast algorithms for computing the outcomes of multiwinner voting rules (results of such rules are often NP-hard to compute), also for new languages of specifying preferences that are needed in practical settings; (b) obtaining algorithmic and mathematical understanding of preference data; and (c) providing algorithms for analyzing elections and their results. We are interested both in theoretical studies (designing new algorithms, analyzing computational complexity of election-related problems, establishing axiomatic features of multiwinner voting rules, etc.) and in experimental evaluations (finding out running times of algorithms, establishing their approximation ratios, evaluating properties of preference data, etc.).

Mots-clés : computational social choice,multiwinner voting,algorithms,computational complexity,preference data,distances among elections
Projet ERC : OMVCRC (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Toscana Life Sciences — Pays : Italie — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : TLS
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 56250.0 €

This proposal originates from recent results obtained in the course of the Advanced ERC Project “OMVac”, the scope of which is to exploit the unique adjuvanticity properties of bacterial Outer Membrane Vesicles (OMVs) for developing innovative vaccines against infectious diseases and cancer. In particular, Synthetic Biology was applied to engineer OMVs with FAT1, a tumour associated antigen expressed in most primary and metastatic colorectal cancers (CRC). Using cancer models in immunocompetent mice, immunization with FAT1-decorated OMVs inhibited subcutaneous growth of FAT1-positive CT26 cancer cells and protection correlated with an increase in tumour infiltration of CD4+/CD8+ T cells and concomitant decrease of Treg and MDSCs. These promising results prompted the submission of the present proposal which has as main objectives: 1) the demonstration that FAT1-OMV immunization can synergise with the protective activity of checkpoint inhibitors, and 2) the development of a scalable FAT1-OMV production and purification process which could allow testing FAT1-OMV/checkpoint inhibitor combination in the clinical setting.

Mots-clés : cancer vaccines,bacterial outer membrane vesicles,fat1,checkpoint inhibitors,anti cancer combination therapies
Projet ERC : SalThApp (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Individuals, Markets and Organisations
Entité participante : Bocconi University — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1431650.0 €

This proposal purports to develop psychologically founded models of economic decision making, test these models, and use them to shed light on several economic phenomena. The proposal builds on the psychology of selective attention. In particular, decision makers more easily retrieve from memory (precisely defined) representative events when making an inference, and they attach disproportionate attention and weighting to (precisely defined) salient choice options when making a choice. These ideas were modelled by the PI and his coauthors in previous work. The present grant proposal develops this research agenda in three stages. First, we plan to extend this approach to new theoretical problems such as the social psychology of stereotypes and the theory of consideration sets. Second, we plan to develop experimental tests dissecting the basic forces driving selective attention and decisions. Third, we plan to apply the theory to shed light on the following economic phenomena: a) investors’ risk perceptions in financial markets and asset price behavior, b) salient policy issues, voting behavior and political competition, c) consumer attention, product design and competition among firms, and d) discrimination in the labor market.

Mots-clés : psychology of decision making,salience,representativeness,consideration set,voting behavior,perceptions of risk in financial markets