Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Ethnic Conflict, Cross-Community Practices & Transversal Assemblages (TRANSVERSAL POLITICS)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: European Re-integration Grants
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2009-RG, 2009)
Start date: 2010-08-01
End date: 2013-07-31
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 45000.0
EU funding (EUR): 45000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The research aims at the elaboration of a philosophy of transformative action for ethnically segregated, conflict-ridden societies, in order to explain the challenge posed by existing practices of cross-community cooperation. This new approach to ethnic conflict draws on the tradition of transversal critical thought and on Gilles Deleuze &amp; Félix Guattari’s (D&amp;G) theory of assemblages. It focuses on the revitalisation of radical agency and conceives cross-community practices (CCPs), assembled by subjects (individuals and groups) and objects (cultural and spatial) in divided societies such as Northern Ireland, Israel, and Australia among others, as producing alternative political spaces by challenging segregated forms of life and actual power relations. Objectives: 1. To explore the concept of transversality in Western critical thought through the lens of ethno-cultural conflict: 1a. To examine the genealogy of transversality through the oeuvres of M. de Certeau, F. Guattari, G. Deleuze, and M. Foucault and of contemporaneous interpreters of the concept. 1b. To explore the articulation of the concept in these texts in relation to social struggles and in the context of divided societies. 1c. To articulate a revisited concept of transversality appropriate for the theorising of ethno-cultural conflict. 2. To explore the applicability of D&amp;G’s theory of social assemblages for ethno-cultural conflict. 3. To place the notions of transversality and assemblage within the context of ethno-cultural conflict and the politics of segregation. 4. To connect between transversality, assemblage and the politics of CCPs in divided societies using existing published research on case-studies. 5. To assemble a theoretical framework for comparative analysis of CCPs in divided societies. This research offers a new perspective on major socio-political challenges of 21st Century and a better understanding of how difference is expressed and defended within the multi-ethnic context.

Keywords: assemblages,cross-community cooperation,ethnic conflict,post-structuralism,transversal agency
Development of Hybrid Nanostructures for Photocatalysis and Fuel Cell Applications (HYBRID NANOMATERIALS)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: International Re-integration Grants
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Israel
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2009-RG, 2009)
Start date: 2010-04-01
End date: 2014-03-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The goal of this study is two-folds: first to develop a new class of catalytic nanostructures based on semiconductor-metal hybrid composites and then to optimize their performance as fuel cell electrocatalysts. Presently, the commercial use of fuel cells is not yet viable due to the inefficiency of the required four electron reduction of adsorbed oxygen species at the cell cathode. This deficiency poses a fundamental challenge to the commercialization of fuel cell technologies. Several electrocatalytic metals have been employed to facilitate this oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), with platinum and platinum based alloys exhibiting the highest catalytic activity. Despite the use of platinum catalysts, the electron-transfer kinetics at the fuel cell cathode is still languid. In addition, platinum is an expensive precious metal, therefore, to achieve large-scale development and commercialization of fuel cells, it is essential that an alternative catalytic material is manufactured. To address this issue, we propose to design a novel catalytic structure which is comprised of a metal anchored onto a semiconductor body. This semiconductor-metal composite structure will take advantage of the intrinsic electron-transfer mechanisms within semiconductors and couple that with the catalytic activity of metals, yielding an electrocatalyst which provides excellent catalytic performance and cost-effectiveness. Fundamentally, this work will broaden our understanding of various essential parameters, such as material composition (the semiconductor and the metal), electron-transfer dynamics (i.e., electrochemical, photochemical), morphology of the nanostrucutres, as well as crystallinity, which impact the performance of an electrocatalyst. Such a fundamental framework is critical in the optimization of catalytic activity and thus will provide invaluable insights which will benefit the development of fuel cell technology.

Keywords: physical sciences,chemistry,nanostructures,catalysis,fuel cells,electrochemistry,semiconductor,metals
Study of the role of apolipoprotein E (apoE), a key component of the lipid and lipoprotein transport system, in the development of obesity-related osteoarthritis (APOEOSTEOARTHRITIS)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: International Re-integration Grants
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Greece
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2009-RG, 2009)
Start date: 2010-07-01
End date: 2014-06-30
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common disease of the joints. However, the molecular mechanisms that are involved in its pathogenesis are still unclear. One of the major causes of OA is obesity. The past few years a lot of studies have focused on the functional link between adipose tissue and cartilage in the development of OA. It has been recently shown that apolipoprotein E (apoE) over-expression promotes diet-induced obesity in mice. In addition, in vitro studies have demonstrated that apoE gene deficiency enhances the reduction of bone in mice fed high-fat diet, while lack of ApoE leads to increased bone formation in mice fed chaw diet. Triggered by these findings, in the present proposal the applicant will use in vivo, biochemical and molecular methodologies in order to investigate the role of ApoE in the pathobiology of obesity-induced OA in mice and explore its implication in the development and progression of OA in humans.

Keywords: health sciences,apolipoprotein e,osteoarthritis,lipids,lipoproteins,obesity
SYNTHESIS AND SELF-ASSEMBLY OF POLYPHOSPHAZENE (PP) BLOCK COPOLYMERS. DESIGN OF NEW INORGANIC NANOSTRUCTURES DERIVED FROM HIGH CRISTALLINE OR/AND CHIRAL HIGH TUNABLE PP BLOCK (AP-GAC)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: European Re-integration Grants
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Spain
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2009-RG, 2009)
Start date: 2010-07-01
End date: 2013-06-30
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 45000.0
EU funding (EUR): 45000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

An exciting new area would involve PP block copolymers. These materials would possess an inorganic PP coblock which is superficially reminiscent of Polysiloxane. However, the PP block is inherently much more tunable. A key advantage is that whereas siloxane blocks are intrinsically highly hydrophobic, phosphazene blocks can be easily derivatized to allow them to become hydrophilic. This has the key advantage that self-assembly can be performed in water making processing and practical applications more realistic. This tunability of phosphazene blocks, will allow us to gain deep insight into the factors that facilitate self-assembly of block copolymers in solution and will also allow us to access stabilized nanomaterials for example by introducing crosslinking groups. The introduction of high crystallinity and/or chirality in the PP block will allow us to generate novel and interesting nanostructures.

Keywords: inorganic chemistry,polymer chemistry,macromolecular chemistry
The Concept of "World" (Sattva-bhAjana-loka) in Indian Early YogAcAra Buddhism: An Intellectual History (YOGALOKACNTXT)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: International Re-integration Grants
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Israel
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2009-RG, 2009)
Start date: 2011-02-20
End date: 2015-11-22
Duration (months): 42.0
Total project cost (EUR): 87500.0
EU funding (EUR): 87500.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Current scholarship on the philosophy of early Indian YogAcAra Buddhism (4th-5th centuries CE) has come under criticism for its de-contextualized understanding of the school's worldview. My research addresses this shortcoming through an intellectual history of the Yogacara's philosophical, cosmological and literary understanding of 'sattva-bhAjana-loka' (the sentient and insentient 'external world'), a fundamental concept that has not received adequate treatment in Scholarship to date. Understanding loka as a unique and pervasive social fact within the Yogacara worldview, this research will: (1). supply a genealogy of the Yogacara's understanding of loka by historically contextualizing it in the school's texts (Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Pali) and in the works of its Indian intellectual milieu. (2) Examine the ways in which the Yogacara's notion of loka - as an intersubjective, illusionary realm - is constructed by the imagery and metaphor of the school's shastric and sutra literature. Contextualizing philosophical analysis with cosmology and imagery, this interdisciplinary research aims to supply a more complete and nuanced picture of the Yogacara's worldview, which will in turn (1) contribute to the clarification of current debates over the schools core doctrines, and (2) contribute to an ongoing and increasingly influential interdisciplinary analysis of intersubjectivity, engaging Buddhist Studies, Philosophy of Mind and Phenomenology. Having recently returned from my doctoral studies at Columbia University in New York to assume a tenure-track position (starting in 2010) in Tel Aviv University’s East and South Asian Department, the IRG would enable me to conduct this research comprehensively (at two leading European research institutes, among other locations), leading to the delivery of a book manuscript and several peer review journal articles, as well as to the organizing of an international interdisciplinary conference

Keywords: humanities: buddhist studies,indian philosophy,history of ideas,sanskrit literature,religious studies,phenomenology,genealogy,metaphor studies,cosmology
Ivestigating the ability of embryonic stem cell derivatives to improve renal function in a murine model of kidney disease. (KIDREGEN)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: European Re-integration Grants
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2009-RG, 2009)
Start date: 2010-09-01
End date: 2012-08-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 30000.0
EU funding (EUR): 30000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The number of people world-wide with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) is increasing every year. Current treatment options consist of dialysis and transplantation, both of which have significant side effects in terms of quality and quantity of life. Therefore there is an urgent need to develop alternative therapies. My recent work has shown that if mouse embryonic stem cells (mESC) are directed to differentiate to mesodermal cells, they show high potential for integrating into developing nephrons in a mouse kidney rudiment ex vivo. Moreover, the ability of mESC –derived mesoderm to generate renal cell types was highly comparable to that of metanephric mesenchyme (MM), which are the cells that give rise to the nephron in the developing kidney. Although these results are encouraging, a key test will be to investigate if the mESC-derived mesoderm cells can generate nephric cell types in a rodent model of kidney disease and if these cells are able to improve renal function. Therefore the aim of this project is to explore the potential for renal replacement therapy from exploitation of the unique properties of mESC. This will be tested by injecting the stem cells into the tail vein of mice with induced kidney injury, following which, the ability of the cells to generate renal cell types and improve renal function will be analysed. The propensity of the stem cells to generate inappropriate cell types or tumours in the animal model will also be tested. A further objective will be to develop an MRI-based tracking system so that the stem cells can be monitored non-invasively following transplantation. The project will form the basis of a long term collaboration between the applicant and the host group at the University of Liverpool.

Keywords: nephrology,biotechnology,biological sciences,developmental biology,cell biology
Applications of New Chiral Nitrogen based ligands in Asymmetric Catalysis (ANCNAC)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: European Re-integration Grants
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Spain
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2009-RG, 2009)
Start date: 2010-05-03
End date: 2013-05-02
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 45000.0
EU funding (EUR): 45000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Catalytic asymmetric chemical processes (synthesis) that create new C-C, C-O, or C-N bonds from simpler molecules are also hugely important as this is how chemical complexity is built up. The scientific community, and specially the industry, is interested in the development of cheap, bench stables and highly selective catalysts for non solved or new developed catalytic asymmetric reactions. We proposed a new family of N-based ligands, and new reactions where they can be applied, as alternative to the use of the P-based. Based in the excellent precedents (asymmetric Diels-Alder and Suzuki-Miyaura reactions) using hydrazone-based ligands, I believe the proposed hydrazone-based ligand will provide a new and interesting family of chiral ligands for a wide number of asymmetric metal catalysed reactions. We will then apply the new chemistry in the synthesis of biologically important molecules.

Keywords: carbon chemistry,organometallic chemistry,homogeneous catalysis
Quantum Nano Optomechanics (QNAO)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: European Re-integration Grants
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: France
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2009-RG, 2009)
Start date: 2010-04-01
End date: 2013-03-31
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 45000.0
EU funding (EUR): 45000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The applicant has been recruited as a Chargé de Recherche for CNRS and will start soon at the Institut Néel (Grenoble, France) his own research activities. The Marie Curie Reintegration Grant will help him start his independent research career and support his installation at the Institute. The goal of the project is to extend the thematic of cavity optomechanics down to the nanoscale and observe the quantum first signatures with hybrid systems constituted of nanomechanical oscillators and single emitters. From their higher mechanical susceptibility, nano-resonators can facilitate the access to the quantum regime of radiation pressure and allow observing the week coupling to a single emitter. Those systems are also interesting candidates for opening links towards solid state physics at the condition to be able to detect and control their Brownian motion. The project will consist in developing an ultrasensitive nearfield sensor of the nanomotion. To do so the nano-mechanical oscillator will be approached in the evanescent tail of a high-Q optical microcavity, rendering its optical resonances sensitive to its position fluctuation. This approach allows to overpass the diffraction limit inherent to the use of light fields with sub-wavelength objects, while still benefiting from the ultrasensitive readout capacity offered by low noise laser sources. Various kinds of exotic resonators could then be studied, in particular suspended graphene membranes, nanotubes, and micropilars or photonic crystal cavities embedding single emitters. The second part of the project aims at studying the coupling of a nano-resonator to a single emitter (quantum dots / color center in diamond nano-crystals), a system that can be seen as a macroscopic trapped ion, and observes the first quantum signatures of this hybrid quantum system.

Keywords: physical sciences,quantum mechanics,condensed matter properties
Multiscale modeling and simulation of bacterial colonies (BACTERIAL COLONY SIM)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: International Re-integration Grants
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Israel
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2009-RG, 2009)
Start date: 2010-06-01
End date: 2014-05-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Some bacteria are known to grow in colonies that form complicated geometrical patterns. In order to develop such a colony, bacteria will sense and respond to their local environment by secreting and absorbing peptides, proteins, pheromones and other chemotactic or quorum sensing molecules. Furthermore, under adverse conditions, bacteria can sporulate, alternate its shape, or look for better DNA. Past work has focused mainly on the biological aspects involved in these processes. However, much less is known on the dynamics of the colony as a whole. In particular, the dynamics of the colony may be completely different than that of the single cell and it is not clear how the bacterial activity at the microscopic scale is related to the collective macroscopic behavior. A recent mathematical model that I developed explains an interesting experiment in which sibling bacterial colonies grown on low-nutrients plates mutually kill each other through secretions released to the media. Simulation results where compared with experimental data. The work was recently submitted to PNAS. The purpose of the proposed research is to develop new and improved models and innovative simulation methods for connecting between the microscopic behavior of individual bacteria and that of the colony as a whole. New algorithms are developed in order to solve the models numerically. Such an interdisciplinary research is crucial for understanding complex biological phenomena. There are many interesting and important directions for future research. For example, new experiments suggest that surface tension may play a key role in the dynamics of the colony. Another example is the addition of newly discovered knowledge on the mechanism bacteria use to decide between sporulation (going into a dormant phase) and competence (mutation into a different form of strand).

Keywords: numerical analysis,computational models,biophysics,computational physics,microbiology
Determination of evolutionary conserved genes that respond to reduced food intake through mitochondria signaling to affect aging (MITODR)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: International Re-integration Grants
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: France
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2009-RG, 2009)
Start date: 2011-01-01
End date: 2012-12-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 50000.0
EU funding (EUR): 50000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The links between diet and lifespan have been revealed 70 years ago but still constitute one of the most mysterious, exciting and extensively studied areas in aging research. In various organisms tested, a restriction of food intake, or DR, can result in lifespan extension up to 50%. In rodents and nonhuman primates, the beneficial effect of DR on longevity is accompanied by reduced incidence of age-related diseases. Thus, as world populations age, understanding how DR impacts animal physiology has far-reaching potentials in term of public health. Recent research has shown that the mitochondrion organelle play an important and evolutionary conserved role in mediating physiologic effects of DR. Our project aims to uncover the molecular changes induced by mitochondria upon DR in C. elegans. We propose to identify genes downstream of mitochondria that affect animal physiology and in particular lifespan upon DR. The nematode C. elegans is an excellent model for this project because of its many powerful genetic and genomic tools. In our first objective, we plan to generate a novel DR model in C. elegans based on its mitochondrial component using chemical and genetics mimics. In our second objective, we propose to identify the gene expression changes specifically induced by mitochondria upon DR. This proposal is likely to reveal new mediators of the cellular adaptations induced by reduced food intake. In addition, our findings will also greatly improve the understanding of mitochondrial signal transduction in controlling whole organism physiology and aging processes. In the future, our research may contribute to therapeutic development of mitochondria-targeted strategies to benefit healthy aging and alleviate age-related diseases.

Keywords: aging,calorie restriction,mitochondria,c. elegans