Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Induced electrodeposition of nanostructures as nanowires and nanotubes consisting of cobalt-based multilayers for MEMS applications (NANOALLOY)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: International Incoming Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Belgium
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2009-IIF, 2009)
Start date: 2010-10-01
End date: 2012-09-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 158600.0
EU funding (EUR): 158600.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Purpose of the project: This project is focused on the synthesis by induced electrodeposition of nanowires and nanotubes as multilayered structures consisting of cobalt alloys with refractory metals like Mo and W. Hereto the superfilling of nanopores present as arrays in anodized aluminium oxide (AAO), will be investigated in-depth. First proofs of principles have been recently achieved by the applicant. The background of the host institution on electrodeposition in micro-pores (e.g. vias used in microelectronics) and its modeling is a most important support to this project. Objectives of research: - To develop at the host institution the scientific insight required for the lab demonstration of the technological feasibility of the novel concept of producing nanostructures (nanotubes, nanopores) with different aspect ratios in AAO by a low cost electrodeposition from environmental-friendly aqueous electrolytes, - To transfer the scientific knowledge to a third country with the objective of nurturing present collaboration and to explore the possibility of further collaboration between researchers and industry inside and outside EU, - To train an experience researcher from a developing country by a European specialist on electrodeposition and tribological testing. Expected research results: - The electrodeposition of cobalt-based homogeneous and multilayered nanotubes and nanowires engulfed in anodized aluminium, and as free-standing products after release from anodized aluminium. - Scientific insight on the role of electrochemical parameters on structural and functional properties of electrodeposited nanotubes and nanowires either engulfed or released from anodized aluminium. - Mapping of the functionality of nanotubes and nanowires made of compositionally modulated layers in view of future applications in MEMs and NEMs technology as wear resistant and/or electro-magnetic materials. .

Keywords: induced electrodeposition,cobalt alloys,nanowires,nanotubes,multilayers,superfilling,characterization,functionality,friction,wear,magnetic properties,mems
The evolutionary genetics of virulence: host-pathogen interactions in Daphnia magna (VIRULENCE EVOLUTION)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: International Incoming Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Switzerland
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2009-IIF, 2009)
Start date: 2010-06-01
End date: 2012-05-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 175065.2
EU funding (EUR): 175065.2
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

At some point in their life all animals will be challenged by the threat of infectious disease. How an animal copes with pathogens will depend on their ability to resist infection or to minimise the virulence of disease once a pathogen has invaded. Accordingly, understanding the mechanisms behind the defence against infection and virulence has been a major goal of not only evolutionary biologists interested in host-pathogen interactions, but also epidemiologists involved in public health considerations and agriculturalists attempting to minimise the impact of pests. However, despite the importance and widespread occurrence of host-pathogen interactions, very little is known about the genetic architecture underlying the different lines of defence that animals use to prevent infectious disease. I propose a research program that will examine the evolutionary genetic basis of host-pathogen interactions in the crustacean Daphnia magna and its bacterium pathogen Pasteuria ramosa. To do so I will take advantage of a newly developed, high coverage quantitative trail loci (QTL) panel to quantify the genomic basis of virulence in this species and the potential role that the host-immune system has in defence against infectious disease. I will also use a novel experimental evolution approach to explore the co-evolutionary link between the ability of a host to resist infection and the resulting severity of disease. This innovative blend of my expertise in evolutionary manipulations and multivariate statistics with the new challenge provided by state of the art genomic techniques, will allow for considerable advances to be made in our understanding of how host and pathogen genomes interact to influence infectious disease. Moreover, by integrating aspects of evolutionary genetics, genomics and immunology, this project will foster significant cross-disciplinary collaborations and enhance Switzerland and Europe’s reputation for integrative evolutionary research.

Keywords: evolutionary biology,host-parasite interactions,evolution of virulence,infectious diseases,ecological genetics,molecular genetics
Neuromagnetic Imaging: Multiobject Bayesian Localization and Estimation (NIMBLE)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Intra-European Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2009-IEF, 2009)
Start date: 2010-09-03
End date: 2012-09-02
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 173403.2
EU funding (EUR): 173403.2
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Functional neuro-imaging is a lively field in contemporary science, with a large number of open research problems and many clinical applications including the non-invasive diagnosis and monitoring of brain conditions such as epilepsy, Alzheimer, Parkinson’s, and brain cancer. In this context, Magnetoencephalography is characterized by an outstanding temporal resolution, and is currently the best available technique for investigating the activity of different brain regions on a millisecond time scale. However, a key open problem for MEG data analysis is the lack of a robust framework for automatic source detection and parameter estimation using MEG data; these are in fact routinely analyzed using labour-intensive manual methods heavily relying on the expertise of the user. The NIMBLE project (Neuromagnetic Imaging: Multiobject Bayesian Localisation and Estimation) aims at developing novel Bayesian methodology for automatic source estimation from MEG data, based on stochastic geometry and point processes. The project is consistent with the research profile of the candidate, who has developed a significant experience with MEG and has obtained preliminary results on estimating MEG sources with Bayesian filtering. The Host Institution was selected by the Fellow in light of its rich research environment in neuroscience including, among others, a world-renowned expert in stochastic geometry and several young researchers with expertise in statistical modeling for neuroimaging, Bayesian inference and sequential Monte Carlo methods for Bayesian filtering. The NIMBLE project is highly multidisciplinary, involving the statistics of point processes, the modeling of neural sources and the efficient implementation of high-dimensional sequential Monte Carlo filters. Should the NIMBLE project be funded, it would contribute to strengthen the EU position in the strategic field of neuroimaging, where competition is currently strong with the United States and Japan.

Keywords: neuroimaging,stochastic geometry,point processes,magnetoencephalography,monte carlo methods,particle filtering,bayesian models
Integrating the human element into law of the sea: the quest for a comprehensive legal regime and adequate implementation tools at the international and EC level (HUMANSATSEA)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Intra-European Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2009-IEF, 2009)
Start date: 2010-07-06
End date: 2012-07-05
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 180603.2
EU funding (EUR): 180603.2
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The aim of the research project is to highlight legal gaps in law of the sea instruments relating to the treatment reserved to individuals and groups of people at sea, being therein either voluntarily or not, to explore mechanism for adapting the existing instruments to a more human-oriented approach and to consider how law of the sea rules could be used in order to provide for a stronger protection of individuals at sea. An important part of the research will be the comparative analysis of law of the sea and related mechanisms, on one hand, and human rights and humanitarian law and mechanisms, on the other. The little scholarly work on the topic, the constant increase in maritime activities, the emergence of new maritime threats and the renewed interest of the EU for a comprehensive legal regime of maritime activities, set out in the Integrated Maritime Policy, all render the topic particularly relevant and its discussion timely. The research, having a duration of 24 months (July 2010 – July 2012) will be carried out at the Law Faculty of the University of Oxford under the supervision of Professor Vaughan Lowe, a leading international law scholar with considerable experience at research supervision. The outcome would be a monograph to be submitted to a leading international publisher. The research aims to identify a novel, human-oriented, approach to maritime activities, to allow a cross-fertilisation of different branches of international law and EU law and to identify issues that have to be dealt with at the international level and within the EU. It will thus advance considerably the scientific excellence of the European Research Area and will permit the candidate researcher, whose experience in international law has been acquired almost exclusively in only one European State, to move to a different EU member State and to enhance and diversify her competences and skills, permitting her to add significantly to her career development and future prospects.

Keywords: human rights,law of the sea,european law,international relations,integrated maritime policy
Food Consumption and Obesity: Public Policy Measures (FOODOB)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Intra-European Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2009-IEF, 2009)
Start date: 2010-09-01
End date: 2011-08-31
Duration (months): 12.0
Total project cost (EUR): 61403.8
EU funding (EUR): 61403.8
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Diet-related chronic diseases are a major public health concern in most developed countries. Numerous policies aimed at stemming the rise in obesity, ranging from informational campaigns on diet and nutrition, to policies that aim to change the relative prices of certain foods using the tax system, as well as regulation on how food is produced, packaged and retailed. We aim at providing a deeper understanding of the impact that different types of taxation policy interventions are likely to have on the diet-related outcomes. A first objective will be to carry out ex ante analyses of the impact of a range of tax policies, including different forms of taxes on saturated fat and sugar. A comparison of the impact of policy reform across two large countries within the European Union, France and the UK, will be implemented. If taxation is to be used as a policy tool at the EU level, it will be important to understand how and why the effects will differ across countries due to differences in consumer preferences and habits, retail market structure and regulatory environment. Both French and British micro panel data are used to implement empirical analysis of these kinds of cross-national policy interventions. A second objective will consist of estimating flexible and precise consumer substitution patterns to realistically represent food and drink consumption behaviour, both within and between food product groups, and over time. This objective deals with several key methodological issues, including how to take into account variation in preferences across households over thousands of differentiated products, and how to introduce health management issue into consumers’ demand. A final objective will focus on the relationship between obesity and the demographic characteristics and food purchasing behaviour of households, to understand what factors affect obesity status and what nutrients are responsible for weight gain.

Keywords: health economics,consumer studies,food economics,econometrics
Bioproduction of pharmaceutically important iridoids: systems biology based approach (SYSBIOPRO)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Intra-European Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Netherlands
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2009-IEF, 2009)
Start date: 2010-09-24
End date: 2012-03-23
Duration (months): 18.0
Total project cost (EUR): 128151.4
EU funding (EUR): 128151.4
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Plant in vitro technologies have been known for more than century. During this time, plant cell, tissue and organ cultures have become increasingly attractive and cost-effective alternatives to classical approaches for the mass production of plant metabolites. Furthermore, plant in vitro systems are the only economically feasible way of producing some high-value metabolites from rare and/or threatened plants. The progress in this field has resulted in the mass production of several important metabolites, such as taxol (paclitaxel), shikonin and berberine by different companies. However, for their production several problems had to be overcome, mainly connected with their cultivation in vitro and high sensitivity to different stress factors/conditions. Today in the postgenomic era, new functional genomic tools (transcriptomics and proteomics), enabling comprehensive investigations of biological systems, are continuously further developing and are gradually being implemented in the field of plant secondary metabolism. The latest of the “omics” is metabolomics, which is now combined with the other “omics” and such a holistic functional genomic approach forms systems biology, in which the synergism of this powerful combination opens novel avenues to fully explore the total biochemical machinery of plants. The general objective of the scientific project is to evaluate the systems biology based approach for bioproduction of pharmaceutically important iridoids from difficult-to-access and endemic Bulgarian plant species. This includes transcriptomic analyses, metabolomics and assessment of biological activities. The metabolic engineering aspects will be also covered through gene/multigene transformations. The project will finally seek for development of technology platform for iridoids production in the green cell factory.

Keywords: in vitro culture of plant material,iridoids,plant biotechnology,metabolite profiling,transcriptomic analyses
Human Capital and Criminal Dicision Making in Youths (HC & CRIME)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Intra-European Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Netherlands
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2009-IEF, 2009)
Start date: 2010-05-01
End date: 2012-04-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 153548.8
EU funding (EUR): 153548.8
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The research I intend to carry out will look into the human capital investment and criminal behaviour of youths. This is a complex issue which has still not been thoroughly investigated because of the endogenous nature of the two phenomena in terms of individual decision making. The choice not to invest in education and commit offences are likely to stem from similar expectations of future labour market and life opportunities. This perception can arise because individuals have a high discount rate for the future and low aversion to risky activities. There is a large literature showing that crime is mainly committed by individuals with lower education and income. However there is a lack of evidence on the mechanism in why this comes about and especially how younger people’s future offending careers are affected by there ‘dropping out’ of formal schooling early. I have access through collaboration with Statistics Netherlands (CBS) to a unique database linking personal information of a large cohort of young people to their reported criminal activity. It contains details on for example education, behaviour, and peer groups, about the surveyed individual but also about their parent’s income, education and offending behaviour. This wealth of information should enable research which could shed light on why certain individual commit crimes and others don’t. The subjects I will investigate are the education-crime relationship, the importance of other risk factors such as peer effects and parental criminal capital, and the dynamics and persistence of youth offending. I will use cutting edge econometric methodologies to disentangle the endogenous nature of human capital investment and offending decisions. Results from such a study could have important implication to design education policies to prevent the onset of criminal careers of young individuals.

Keywords: labour economics,economics of crime,economics of education,behvioural economics,applied micro-econometrics
First-principles modelling of electron-phonon anisotropy (ELE-PH-ANT) in low-dimensional superconductors (ELEPHANT)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Intra-European Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2009-IEF, 2009)
Start date: 2011-01-01
End date: 2012-12-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 181103.2
EU funding (EUR): 181103.2
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Superconductors' remarkable ability to carry significant currents and generate strong magnetic fields is finding use in numerous applications, including energy storage and distribution, medicine, electronics, and transportation. The ground-breaking discoveries of superconductivity in magnesium diboride and iron pnictides have triggered a new wave of fundamental and applied research. In this context, the development of innovative computational methods is an important research direction that will give further insights into the physics of superconductivity and may allow the design of new materials with tailored superconducting properties. I will investigate the role of spatial anisotropy in appealing phonon-mediated superconducting materials by developing and applying cutting-edge atomistic simulation methods. My main goal is to integrate a recently proposed methodology for the electron-phonon interaction based on Wannier functions with the anisotropic Migdal-Eliashberg formalism. The approach holds great promise for qualitatively better description of low-dimensional superconductors, in which the anisotropy of the electron-phonon interaction plays a crucial role, and for enabling the investigation of complex systems, which are beyond the reach of present computational methods. The application part will be devoted to exploring the superconducting mechanisms in carbon- and boron-based materials of reduced dimensionality. Graphite intercalation compounds are still a subject of debate due to the anisotropic nature of the electron paring while carbon nanotubes pose a largely unexplored fundamental question of how superconductivity can emerge in one-dimensional systems. Finally, magnesium diboride remains to be the most outstanding phonon-mediated superconductor despite an extensive search for related superconducting materials: a systematic screening will be carried out to identify multi-component metal boride materials with potential for superconductivity.

Keywords: computational physics,superconductors,solid state physics,first-principles,modelling
Impact of the chromatin environment on the CTG repeat instability involved in myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM AND CHROMATIN)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Intra-European Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: France
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2009-IEF, 2009)
Start date: 2010-09-01
End date: 2012-08-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 165145.6
EU funding (EUR): 165145.6
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Since the identification of unstable trinucleotide repeats (TNRs) as the genetic cause of human neurological diseases, many studies have tried to unravel the mechanisms of repeat expansion. MSH2 and MSH3, DNA mismatch repair proteins, modify expansion in transgenic mice. Circumstantial evidence suggests that cis-elements surrounding the repeats modulate their instability. However, a detailed analysis of the relationship between chromatin environment and trinucleotide repeat instability is lacking. I will address this issue using transgenic mice that show the highest levels of CTG repeat instability observed in mice thus far. These animals carry long human genomic sequences spanning the DM1 locus containing normal or expanded CTG repeats. I will compare the chromatin status around the repeat in different tissues, showing different degrees of instability, throughout development. DM1 transgenic mice lacking MSH2 display predominantly repeat contractions, providing a unique tool to unravel the contraction mechanisms. This will yield important clues towards the development of new therapeutic approaches, possibly by inducing contractions, as the increase in trinucleotide somatic instability with age is thought to contribute to disease progression. The new insights will also be invaluable for halting intergenerational instability, which leads to new and often more severe cases in the next generation. Therefore, the chromatin studies will be extended to Msh2-/- tissues. Double strand breaks (DSBs) may form at CTG repeats and might be repaired via recombination processes, The formation of gamma-H2AX foci, a signature of DSB formation, will be examined at the DM1 locus, to test whether contractions arise as a consequence of DSBs and recombination in Msh2-/- mice. Since the many different TNR diseases share important genetic properties, increased understanding of the CTG repeat instability mechanisms will undoubtedly be beneficial for this group of disorders.

Keywords: myotonic dystrophy,trinucleotide repeat instability,chromatin,epigenetics,ctcf binding