Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Ultracold Bose-Fermi Mixtures of Metastable Helium (BOSEFERMIHE)

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: France
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2007-4-2-IIF, 2007)
Start date: 2008-09-01
End date: 2010-08-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 172167.92
EU funding (EUR): 172167.92
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Experiments using Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) of ultracold atoms have demonstrated the quantum mechanical similarities between ultracold bosonic atoms and photons of light. In addition, research using ultracold fermionic atoms has shed light on other interesting and/or unsolved phenomena, such as the pairing of electrons in superconductors and the mechanisms of high Tc superconductivity. Helium has both stable bosonic (4He) and fermionic (3He) isotopes that may be cooled to quantum degeneracy in a metastable electronic excited state (He*), thus making it ideally suited for the study of the overlap between the fields of ultracold atomic gases, quantum optics and condensed matter. He* offers a major advantage over other atomic species due to the large internal energy (~20 eV) stored in each atom. Whereas the detection of ultracold atoms typically relies on optical means that are limited in resolution and efficiency, He* atoms dropped onto a microchannel plate are precisely located in time and space due to the de-excitation of their internal energy. In groundbreaking experiments, the bunching of bosonic atoms, a phenomenon predicted for photons, has been observed using bosonic 4He*. Remarkably, the corresponding anti-bunching of fermionic 3He* atoms, with no direct optical analogy, was also observed. Incorporating the capacity to trap and cool fermionic 3He* into an existing 4He* BEC apparatus will open the door to many new opportunities. For example, bosons within a Bose-Fermi mixture may mediate interactions between fermions and play the role of the phonons in a BCS superconductor. Moreover, Bose-Fermi mixtures in optical lattices promise a unique opportunity for the study of condensed matter systems, and the detection capability afforded by the He* system should allow for the observation of correlations and possibly quantum entanglement.

Keywords: bose einstein condensate,bec,degenerate fermi gas,correlations,metastable,lattice,disorder
Life Style and Genetic Factors in Prevention of Type 2 Diabetes (PREVENTION T2D)

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: Finland
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2007-4-2-IIF, 2007)
Start date: 2008-08-01
End date: 2009-07-31
Duration (months): 12.0
Total project cost (EUR): 123848.66
EU funding (EUR): 123848.66
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The incoming phase will be used for orientation about the experience gained in how to prevent type 2 Diabetes (T2D) by using life style changes (reduced weight gain, increased physical activity, less dietary fat, increased fibre intake) and also through genetic prediction. A long intervention program will be designed to start the implementation in Egypt during the re-integration phase with coordination with the implementing institutions. The curriculum of training the staff on different methodology from different specialities and Health Education material for Diabetic patients to change their life style will be prepared. Genetic prediction will be considered to identify individuals at risk of developing T2D. Some risk factors (elevated plasma glucose conc. in the fasting state and after an oral glucose load, overweight, and a sedentary lifestyle) are potentially reversible. Modifying these factors with a lifestyle-intervention program would prevent diabetes. In this program, middle-aged, overweight subjects are randomly assigned with impaired glucose tolerance to either the intervention group or the control group. Each subject in the intervention group receive individualized counselling aimed at reducing weight, total intake of fat, and intake of saturated fat and increasing intake of fibre and physical activity. The average age will be 50 years, and the mean body-mass index will be measured. An oral glucose-tolerance test will be performed annually; the diagnosis of diabetes is confirmed by a second test. The mean duration of follow-up is 2-3 years. The outcome of the incoming phase will be a Plan to implement Diabetes Prevention Program in Egypt with simplified curriculum and health education materials. In the re-integration period, there will be a start of implementation with workshop and training courses for the staff contributing in the project. A pilot study will be done during the 6 month which will include life style changes and genetic polymorphism study.

Keywords: prevention,type 2 diabetes,life style,genetic polymorphism
EUROpean CITIzenship practice: political participation of transnational European senior migrants (EURO_CITI)

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: Spain
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2007-2-1-IEF, 2007)
Start date: 2008-07-01
End date: 2010-06-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 151369.07
EU funding (EUR): 151369.07
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

In the context of European integration and the emergence of a leisure-oriented culture, traditional lifestyles have been replaced by new patterns of behaviour. In this regard, a remarkable phenomenon is the increasing migration of mainly retired Europeans to the coastal regions of the Mediterranean. In the last decade, major changes concerning the social and political participation of such amenity-seeking migrants have been taking place, chiefly triggered by granting EU-foreigners active and passive voting rights in local elections. Given the fact that many of the retired residents belong to the economic elite and were successful professionals, they count on powerful tools, know-how and resources to integrate and take leadership in local politics. Migrants from northern Europe founded their own parties e.g. in many Spanish municipalities and are currently active in the local councils. EURO_CITI is an innovative and interdisciplinary research project dealing with the different forms of political participation of retired European residents and principally aimed at discussing the practice of European Citizenship both in a conceptual and empirical framework.

Keywords: social sciences,geography,human geography,political theory,globalization,migration studies,identity politics,international retirement migration,citizenship,governance,eu policies
Cooperatively enhanced asymmetric hydrogen bonding catalysis (CATFOLD)

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: United Kingdom
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2007-4-2-IIF, 2007)
Start date: 2009-04-01
End date: 2011-03-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 169957.94
EU funding (EUR): 169957.94
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

This project is concerned with the design, synthesis and validation of new hairpin-turn mimics, and their exploitation in asymmetric catalysis through the development of cooperatively-enhanced hydrogen-bonding catalysts. The aims of this research are: 1. The design and synthesis of a range of novel nonpeptidic turn mimics. This will involve the delineation of novel design and build principles for this important secondary structural element, and conformational elucidation through a range of spectroscopic techniques. 2. The exploitation of these materials in the generation of novel sheet-like materials. The generation of sheet-forming materials is an important validation step for new hairpin turn structures. 3. The development of a range of hydrogen-bonding catalysts based on these turn structures that adopt well-defined secondary structures and operate via cooperatively enhanced hydrogen bonding. This will involve the decoration of the turn scaffold with appropriate functional groups and elucidation of their conformation. 4. Investigation and exploitation of the catalytic properties of these materials. This will lead to the development of a range of novel catalytic asymmetric transformations. We propose the union of these two fields in the belief that a fundamental understanding of hydrogen bonding, and the ability to manipulate this phenomenon as a tool is essential in the design of catalysts with enzyme-like reactivity and selectivity. As a consequence, this project has the potential to impact significantly on the two fields of foldamer design and asymmetric catalysis.

Keywords: hydrogen bonding,foldamer,catalysis,hairpin turns,cooperativity
New strategies for bioconjugation to quantum dots. Study of protein-nucleic acids and protein-protein interactions using fluorescence resonance energy transfer through quantum-dot-protein conjugates (QDS)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: International Outgoing Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Spain
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2007-4-1-IOF, 2007)
Start date: 2008-10-01
End date: 2011-09-30
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 225998.97
EU funding (EUR): 225998.97
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Quantum Dots (QDs) are a relative new semiconductor nanoparticles made from Cd/Se or Cd/Te with a shell of ZnS that have very excellent spectroscopic properties: broad absorption spectra, low photobleaching levels, narrow and symmetric emission bands, high quantum yields and large stoke shifts, which make them very attractive for fluorescence applications and, principally, for research studies in the biomedical field. The use of nanoparticles in vitro and in vivo has come in parallel with the development of water soluble QDs. However, together with the improvement in the solubility properties, there is a nascent necessity of developing efficient chemoselective methods of bioconjugation. This purpose is where is addressed this proposal to. We are going to try to use chemoselective ligations to attach peptides and proteins to QDs. In principle, we are interested in oxime, hydrazone reactions and [3+2] azide-alkyne cycloadditions, because it´s known that are very selective and happen with efficient rates at low µM concentrations (~10 µM) forming thermodynamically and kinetically stable products. Moreover, these ligation reactions have been used with success in peptide-peptide and peptide-dye conjugations. Once we have developed the conjugation methodology, we have in mind to apply it to the study of protein-nucleic acids and protein-protein interactions through the well-known FRET technique (Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer). We think that attaching a low number of proteins per quantum dot (around 5-10 protein molecules/QD) we can get high amplifications in the FRET signal, which will allow us to measure thermodynamic parameters like binding constants. To evaluate the method, we´ll study the system formed by GCN4 (a natural Transcription Factor) and its CRE recognition site (5´-…ATGACGTCAT…-3´), principally because there is a high literature data that help us to validate the approach.

Keywords: health sciences,technological sciences,nanotechnology,chemical biology,quantum dots,peptides,proteins,nucleic acids,bioconjugation reactions,protein-dna interactions
Mediterranean Coral Calcification in response to global change (MECCA)

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-2007-2-1-IEF, 2007)
Start date: 2008-04-01
End date: 2010-03-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 163076.7
EU funding (EUR): 163076.7
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Global environmental change and the rise of CO2 have been identified as a major threat to scleractinian corals and coral reefs. General predictions are that ocean acidification will be detrimental to reef growth and that 40 to > 80 % of present-day reefs will decline during the next 50 years. While the impact of global change on reef-building corals has been intensely studied, not much is known on the response of deep-sea, cold-water corals or azooxanthellate shallow water corals. Also, the role of coral-associated prokaryotes in coral calcification and the microbial response to variable pCO2 and temperature and its impact on host calcification needs to be addressed. To tackle these open questions experiments with Mediterranean deep and shallow water azooxanthellate corals under controlled lab conditions with varying pCO2 and temperature will be conducted. The choice to study corals from the Mediterranean has several reasons: 1) the Mediterranean is an enclosed system and can be regarded as a miniature ocean that is expected to react faster to global change than the open ocean; 2) in general all "ecotypes" of corals ranging from zooxanthellate, shallow water corals that are also known from tropical reefs to azooxanthellate deep, cold-water corals are actually present in the Mediterranean; 3) some tropical and cold water coral species in the Mediterranean are at their biogeographic distribution limits confined by temperature constraints, and as such the study of Mediterranean corals and their response to global change will likely result in the identification of "tipping points" in response to temperature and pH changes. A last point is that no model predictions exist on the carbonate chemistry of the Mediterranean, but data compilation is in progress (J. Orr, IAEA Monaco) and the study of Mediterranean corals can thus contribute to the modelling of Mediterranean response to anthropogenic CO2 and global warming.

Keywords: global change,anthropogenic co2,ocean acidification,mediterranean,coral biology,adaptation strategies,microbiology,symbiosys,marine biology
Philosophy of quantum mechanics and the metaphysics of dispositional properties (QUANTDISPOSITION)

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-2007-2-1-IEF, 2007)
Start date: 2008-09-01
End date: 2009-09-30
Duration (months): 13.0
Total project cost (EUR): 118685.69
EU funding (EUR): 118685.69
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The project aims to connect the research in the metaphysics of dispositional properties with some interpretative issues brought about by quantum mechanics. One of the most intriguing phenomena occurring in the quantum world is the apparent causal connection between spatially separated systems, known as the phenomenon of non-locality. The initial goal of the project is to analyse the nature and metaphysical consequences of non-local interactions occurring in quantum entangled systems with the help of the notion of irreducible quantum dispositions. In order to achieve this goal, an extensive investigation into modern metaphysics of dispositions is required. As part of the project, several important questions regarding the nature of dispositional properties will be considered. Among them will be the question whether dispositions can be defined with the help of counterfactual conditionals, as well as the problem of the relation between dispositional properties and their categorical bases. In connection with the latter issue, the possibility of ‘bare’ dispositions, i.e. dispositions that have no categorical causal bases, will be thoroughly examined. Further metaphysical issues in the purview of the project include the question of the intrinsicness of dispositional properties, as well as their causal efficacy. The ultimate objective of these investigations is to explore the possibility that there may be dispositions which are extrinsic, irreducible to any categorical properties, causally inert, and fully explicable with the help of counterfactual conditionals. Around the notion of such dispositions an interpretation of quantum mechanics can be hopefully built which not only will avoid some pitfalls of non-locality, but possibly throw a new light on other interpretative issues such as the measurement problem.
Elucidating the mechanism of action of cyclotides: ultra-stable proteins from plants (CYCLOTIDE MECHANISM)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: International Outgoing Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Portugal
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2007-4-1-IOF, 2007)
Start date: 2009-01-01
End date: 2011-12-31
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 222590.1
EU funding (EUR): 222590.1
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The utility of conventional peptides in pharmaceutical and biotechnological applications is limited by their poor stability and bioavailability. Cyclotides are plant derived mini-proteins with unique structural properties that make them exceptionally stable and have a range of exciting applications in drug design and agriculture. Beside the variety of intrinsic activities, there are still many unanswered questions regarding the mechanism involved in cyclotides activity. Understanding how they exert their biological effects is a crucial step and is the basis of this proposal. Recent evidence has emerged that these actions are mediated by membrane interactions and this study will determine the chemical and biophysical basis for these interactions. The main goal of this project is to explore the interaction of a selected set of cyclotides with biological membranes. The specific objectives are to evaluate: 1) the structural features important for the membrane binding of cyclotides; 2) the structural basis of membrane selectivity; 3) if the self-association properties of cyclotides are involved in their mechanism of action; 4) the biophysical basis for the effects of cyclotides on living cells; 5) the information from objective 1-4, together with bioactivity data to rationalise the bioactivity of cyclotides. Understanding how cyclotides exert their biological activities will provide valuable information that can be applied in subsequent drug design studies. The outgoing host lab has a strong background on cylotides and several facilities that can be optimized for peptide-lipid studies (NMR and fluorescence spectroscopies, isothermal titration calorimetry and surface Plasmon resonance). An advanced training to complement applicant specific expertise and skills in peptide-lipid interaction, obtained previously in return host lab, will be acquired. This knowledge exchange between outgoing and return host organization will create an environment for future collaborations.

Keywords: biophysics,nmr spectroscopy,peptide-membrane interactions,drug design,cyclic peptides
PREDICTING POPULATION DYNAMICS FROM QUANTITATIVE TRAITS IN APODEMUS SYLVATICUS (APODYNA)

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-2007-2-1-IEF, 2007)
Start date: 2008-07-01
End date: 2010-06-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 181142.1
EU funding (EUR): 181142.1
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Population biology is concerned with understanding how population size, phenotypic trait distributions and allele frequencies fluctuate in time. Identifying how and why variation in demographic rates generates changes in the three, and in turn, how variation in these factors feeds back on variation in demographic rates, is consequently central to population biology. There are multiple factors that influence demographic rates including life history, environmental variation, density-dependence, age structure and chance. One way to incorporate this complexity is to examine how trait distributions arise at a point in time, how these influence demographic rates, and how the realised demography alters the trait distributions at the next point in time. In this proposal we will use an approach that describes the consequences of feedback between trait distributions and demography to understand the association between trait dynamics and population dynamics, hence addressing questions in animal stochastic demography. Specifically we are interested in understanding the links between inter-individual variation in life-histories (expressed as distributions of phenotypic traits) and population dynamics. In order to do so we have identified a wild species of rodent as a model species, the Wood mouse (Apodemus sylvaticus), which will allow collecting data on phenotypic traits, their distribution and population size over time. In technical terms we will be statistically characterising the link between trait variation and population growth and asking how these associations vary with time. We will then combine these statistical associations into population models. Understanding population dynamics is important for predicting population behaviour and this has practical implications for the management of threatened or endangered species relevant for conservation and of pest species which affect agriculture and that poses a risk to human health as disease vectors.

Keywords: natural sciences,environmental science,ecological modelling,animal ecology,demography,rodents,quantitative traits,microevolutionary changes