Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
DNA Block Copolymers: New Architectures and Applications (NUCLEOPOLY)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Materials and Synthesis
Countries involved: Netherlands
Call:  (ERC-2009-StG, 2009)
Start date: 2009-11-01
End date: 2014-10-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1500000.0
EU funding (EUR): 1500000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

With our contributions to DNA block copolymers (DBCs), we have opened a new field of interdisciplinary research at the intersection of polymer chemistry, biology and nanoscience. Within this proposal, we intend to apply our expertise with linear DBCs to new nucleocopolymer architectures ranging from star polymers to DNA networks. Our efforts will not only explore new covalently-bonded polymer topologies but also extend the range of self-assembled supramolecular structures accessible with DBCs. Current progress in this direction has yielded spherical and rod-like DBC micelles. In this proposal we further envisage membranes and vesicles generated by macromolecular DNA amphiphiles. A special focus will be the manipulation of the permeability of these structures by hybridization and the insertion of channel proteins. A major part of the proposal addresses potential applications of DBC architectures in the fields of nucleic acid detection and drug delivery. We will produce selective and sensitive nucleic acid probes employing DBCs with highly emissive conjugated polymer segments or based on novel fluorogenic DNA-templated reactions. Plans for potential delivery systems include the establishment of a DBC-based technology platform to allow combinatorial testing of micelle structures equipped with improved targeting, drug loading and stealth functions. For this purpose, the DNA shell of the nanoscopic aggregates will be exploited for its biological activity in the context of antisense and small interfering RNA activity as well as immune stimulation. Finally, we will employ DBC micelles as programmable nanoreactors within the complex environment of living cells and even carry out sequence-specific organic transformations induced by the cell s own messenger RNA

Keywords: block copolymer,nanostructure
Dynamical imprints of the evolutionary history of the Milky Way (GALACTICA)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Universe sciences
Countries involved: Netherlands
Call:  (ERC-2009-StG, 2009)
Start date: 2010-01-01
End date: 2015-12-31
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1613680.0
EU funding (EUR): 1613680.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Galactic Astronomy is entering a new era, driven by state-of-the-art instrumentation and large surveys, and by the dramatic leaps in our understanding of galaxy formation provided by the cosmological LCDM framework. These surveys have shown that the Galaxy is up for discoveries every single month, and have revealed the first footprints of past mergers. This Era will reach its summit when the Gaia mission, scheduled for launch in 2011, provides the much-awaited survey of Galactic phase-space for a billion stars. This motivates us to propose a program that will provide a comprehensive view of the dynamical imprints leftover from the Galaxy s evolutionary history. This program will address the following key questions: How much memory does a galaxy like the Milky Way retain of its past? What is the relative importance of internally driven (secular processes) and externally acquired (mergers) phase-space substructure? What was the merging history of the Galaxy? Is the Galaxy consistent with LCDM? This ambitious program will advance the field of Galactic archaeology beyond the state-of-the-art thanks to two developments: the Aquarius Project simulations and the RAVE spectroscopic survey. The Aquarius are the largest ever cosmological simulations of a Milky Way dark matter halo. When complemented with a recently built phenomenological galaxy formation model, these superb simulations will serve for comparisons to the latest observational datasets, and in particular to the RAVE survey that is providing a fantastic dynamical map of the Solar vicinity. This will enable us to be in prime position to exploit the first Gaia data release in 2013, and before the end of this Research Program, to harvest its key scientific goal, namely to unravel the assembly history of the Milky Way.

Keywords: dynamics,galaxy evolution
DESIGN AND ELABORATION OFMULTI-PHYSICS INTEGRATED NANOSYSTEMS (DELPHINS)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Systems and communication engineering
Countries involved: France
Call:  (ERC-2009-StG, 2009)
Start date: 2009-11-01
End date: 2014-10-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1723206.49
EU funding (EUR): 1723206.49
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The innovation of DELPHINS application will consist in building a generic multi-sensor design platform for embedded multi-gas-analysis-on-chip, based on a global modelling from the individual NEMS sensors to a global multiphysics NEMS-CMOS VLSI (Very large Scale Integration) system. The latter constitute a new research field with many potential applications such as in medicine (specific diseases recognition) but also in security (toxic and complex air pollutions), in industry (perfumes, agribusiness) and environment control. As an example, several studies in the last 10 years have demonstrated that some specific combination of biomarkers in breath above a given threshold could indicate early stage of diseases. More generally, patterns of breathing gas could constitute a virtual fingerprint of specific pathologies. NEMS (Nano-Electro-Mechanical Systems) based sensor is one of the most promising technologies to get the required resolutions and sensitivities for few molecules detection. We will focus on the analytical module of the system (sensing part + embedded electronics processing) that will include ultra-dense (more than thousands) NEMS arrays with state-of the art CMOS transistors. We will obtain integrated nano-oscillators individually addressed within an innovative architecture inspired from memory and imaging technologies. Few molecules sensitivity will be achieved thanks to suspended resonant nanowires co-integrated locally with their closed-loop and reading electronics. This would make possible the analysis of complex gases within an integrated portable system, which does not exist yet.

Keywords: sensors,electronics,gas detection,diagnostic,environment
Frequency Combs Quantum Metrology (FRECQUAM)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Fundamental constituents of matter
Countries involved: France
Call:  (ERC-2009-StG, 2009)
Start date: 2010-02-01
End date: 2016-01-31
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1126000.0
EU funding (EUR): 1126000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Optical frequency combs are extraordinary tools for metrology which have been recently crowned by a Nobel prize: they have replaced complicated frequency chains to perform direct frequency and time measurements with much higher accuracy, which is now getting close to the quantum limit. However, quantum aspects of measurements performed with these sources have not yet been studied. This is the subject of this proposal. Based on model experiments such as space-time positioning, dispersion, velocity or frequency measurements, we propose to assess and reach experimentally ultimate limits derived from information theory in presence of quantum noise. We also propose to go beyond these limits using non-classical states. More specifically, we propose to fulfil the following objectives : &quot; Objective 1 : achieve the best absolute space-time positioning sensitivity ever using quantum optics techniques applied to frequency combs. &quot; Objective 2 : apply those techniques to other high sensitivity measurement such as dispersion, velocity or frequency metrology. &quot; Objective 3 : explore fundamental quantum physics effects in the lab with quantum frequency combs. These tasks will be performed by developing a quantum frequency comb factory, based on mode locked laser sources and parametric oscillators, whose conception is a research line in itself, and that would also be used for new quantum states generation such as macroscopic entanglement and multimode states.

Keywords: ranging - frequency combs - non-classical states - entanglement -
Dedicated growth of novel 1-dimensional materials for emerging nanotechnological applications (DEDIGROWTH)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Materials and Synthesis
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (ERC-2009-StG, 2009)
Start date: 2010-02-01
End date: 2016-01-31
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1276038.0
EU funding (EUR): 1276038.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

This proposal aims to establish growth systematics for catalytically grown nanomaterials, such as nanoparticles, nanorods, carbon and hetero-atomic nanotubes. At present there is no clear understanding of the formation mechanism of these structures. Hence, the control over their properties, a vital aspect for technological applications of nanomaterials, is limited and remains difficult. Therefore, the main target of this proposal is the controlled production of new carbon and non-carbon-based nanomaterials with the focus on achieving structural control of the nanomaterials at the atomic level. An essential step towards the controlled generation of such new nanomaterials is a comprehensive understanding of the growth reactions and the role of the metal catalyst involved in the synthesis process. To achieve this, we will use in-situ techniques to study the chemical environment in the reactor during growth and state-of-the-art electron microscopy to reveal the chemical composition of the resulting catalyst particles and structures with atomic resolution. This data will provide information on how the nanostructure may have formed. Theoretical calculations and modelling of atomic scale processes of the catalyst reactivity will be used to draw a consistent picture of the functioning of the catalyst. An improved understanding of the functioning of the catalyst will allow us to estimate how the catalyst particles and reaction conditions have to be modified in order to enhance or to suppress certain products. A new high-throughput synthesis method together with the systematic variation of the growth parameters, such as cluster particle size and composition, temperature, gas pressure and precursor, will be used to generate a nanomaterials growth library. This nanomaterials library will be made available on the Internet for use by other researchers in planning their experiments.

Keywords: catalyst design,atomic scale resolution,in-situ characterisation,atom probe,electron microscopy,large scale production,gas sensors,nanocomposites
Cognitive Image Understanding: Image representations and Multimodal learning (COGNIMUND)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Computer science and informatics
Countries involved: Belgium
Call:  (ERC-2009-StG, 2009)
Start date: 2010-02-01
End date: 2015-01-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1538380.0
EU funding (EUR): 1538380.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

One of the primary and most appealing goals of computer vision is to automatically understand the content of images on a cognitive level. Ultimately we want to have computers interpret images as we humans do, recognizing all the objects, scenes, and people as well as their relations as they appear in natural images or video. With this project, I want to advance the state of the art in this field in two directions, which I believe to be crucial to build the next generation of image understanding tools. First, novel more robust yet descriptive image representations will be designed, that incorporate the intrinsic structure of images. These should already go a long way towards removing irrelevant sources of variability while capturing the essence of the image content. I believe the importance of further research into image representations is currently underestimated within the research community, yet I claim this is a crucial step with lots of opportunities good learning cannot easily make up for bad features. Second, weakly supervised methods to learn from multimodal input (especially the combination of images and text) will be investigated, making it possible to leverage the large amount of weak annotations available via the internet. This is essential if we want to scale the methods to a larger number of object categories (several hundreds instead of a few tens). As more data can be used for training, such weakly supervised methods might in the end even come on par with or outperform supervised schemes. Here we will call upon the latest results in semi-supervised learning, datamining, and computational linguistics.

Keywords: object recognition,image understanding
Video-oriented UWB-based Intelligent Ubiquitous Sensing (VISION)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Systems and communication engineering
Countries involved: Italy,Italy,North Macedonia
Call:  (ERC-2009-StG, 2009)
Start date: 2010-04-01
End date: 2015-03-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1173680.0
EU funding (EUR): 1173680.0
Participants: 4
Project status: CLOSED

Real-time (RT) sensing with enhanced video capabilities is a powerful tool capturing a significant variety of data, thus providing an excellent substrate to build up an accurate context abstraction. Machine capability of creating a good context abstraction will boost several applications. 3D video allows the recognition of objects shapes, human gestures and facial expressions, improving human-to-machine interaction. Surveillance systems, empowered by automatic recognition of gestures, will suddenly detect a threat. Facial expressions may reveal the status of elderly or disabled people. Remote driving and decision making process of robots for scientific or rescue expeditions will improve. VISION aims to developing an innovative infrastructure providing RT sensing services, with particular emphasis on 3D video, with mobile and context-aware operation. Hence, it will address the numerous challenges raised by the limitations of current technology for wireless sensor networks. VISION will exploit the 60 GHz UWB radios enabling broadband transmissions, miniaturized devices and reduced interference. Due to the inherent high resource consumption of broadband wireless necessary for RT 3D video, VISION sensor network will be optimized at all layers. A comprehensive channel model, based on propagation measurements, will be derived and used to design the UWB signal waveform for reliable broadband transmission. Novel techniques to manage the huge number of nodes required by ubiquitous sensing, and innovative tools to support the development process of intelligent services will be designed. Full cross-layer adaptability to external conditions will assure the system be able to manage the available resources to provide the best achievable quality of service guaranteeing graceful degradation for video, audio and sensing applications. Innovative sensor nodes based on the above concepts will be designed and prototyped for the VISION demonstration.

Keywords: 60 ghz radios,context-awareness,resource-awarness,system qos
Molecular Interfacial structure and dynamics of Nanoscopic droplets in Emulsions (MINE) (MINE)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Physical and Analytical Chemical sciences
Countries involved: Switzerland,Germany
Call:  (ERC-2009-StG, 2009)
Start date: 2009-11-01
End date: 2014-10-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1149999.6
EU funding (EUR): 1149999.6
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

Emulsions consist of one liquid dispersed as nanoscopic droplets in another liquid, such as milk, and butter. The understanding of the structure and stability of emulsions is commonly obtained from empirical studies in which a macroscopic parameter (like temperature or concentration of constituents) is varied. Since the work of Irving Langmuir and others (published in 1917) it is well established that the stability and properties of these nanoscopic droplets are strongly influenced by the state of the droplet interface. However, despite the abundance and importance of emulsions in our daily lives, the molecular mechanisms that dictate the stability and properties of emulsions are still unknown. This lack of insight is caused by the system itself: the condensed surrounding medium forms an impenetrable barrier to most molecular probes. Nonlinear light scattering spectroscopy, a novel method I have developed (both theoretically and experimentally), offers a way of obtaining molecular information (chemical composition, molecular orientation, ordering and chirality) of the interfaces of nanoscopic particles in solution. With this method it should be possible to observe, in-situ, non-invasively and label-free, the molecules at the interface of the nanoscopic droplets in solution. I therefore propose to form a small group that investigates interfaces of nanoscopic droplets in emulsions on the molecular level and timescale. Using femtosecond nonlinear light scattering methods we can finally observe the molecules that dictate the structure and stability of emulsions in action.

Keywords: nonlinear light scattering,emulsions,interfaces,nonlinear optics
New Issues in Macro Modeling (MACROMOD)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Individuals, institutions and markets
Countries involved: Italy
Call:  (ERC-2009-StG, 2009)
Start date: 2009-11-01
End date: 2014-10-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 648000.0
EU funding (EUR): 648000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

This project aims at providing novel foundations for the aggregate supply and demand blocks of current macro models, which are extensively used for policy evaluation. On the aggregate-supply side, the first part of the proposal is motivated by recent extensive and consistent empirical evidence on the presence of downward nominal and real rigidities in developed economies. The objective is to investigate the theoretical and empirical implications of including these rigidities in current macro models for: 1) the long-run relationships between inflation, unemployment and productivity growth; 2) the joint dynamics of inflation and unemployment; 3) the role of macroeconomic volatility in influencing these relationships; 4) the distribution of wages. From the policy perspective, several key implications would be examined in terms of the optimal inflation rate and the appropriate degree of stabilization policies. The second part of the proposal deals with the aggregate-demand side of current models and particularly with the specification of the stochastic discount factor. It is a well-known fact that macro models are unable to match the asset-price implications of the data. These shortcomings are more pronounced in open-economy models since the stochastic discount factors also determine the cross-country distribution of wealth and the portfolio allocations. The project will: 1) document the failures of standard preferences in accounting for several puzzles; 2) study whether there exists some stochastic discount factor that can be consistent with the data and with no-arbitrage theories; 3) add a macro structure on this stochastic discount factor while maintaining its consistency with data. In reference to the latter point, particular attention will be devoted to near-rational theories of optimizing behaviour in which the distortions in the subjective probability distributions can be related to macro variables through an optimizing model. Finally, the research under this proposal will integrate the findings of part 1) and part 2) of the project to propose more realistic frameworks in which it is possible to investigate how investment and consumption decisions change when agents’ evaluation of future contingencies is distorted or uncertain. In particular, the project aims at investigating how monetary policy should be set when agents fear model misspecification, which manifests itself thorugh considerable and realistic premia in holding risky assets.

Keywords: downward nominal and real rigidities,euler equations,new keynesian economics,open economies
Research on Economic Fluctuations and Globalization (FLUCTUATIONS)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Individuals, institutions and markets
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (ERC-2009-StG, 2009)
Start date: 2009-10-01
End date: 2013-09-30
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 544581.6
EU funding (EUR): 544581.6
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The first strand of the proposal seeks to study housing market fluctuations. Housing markets play a prominent role in the economy and in the conduct of monetary policy and yet standard DSGE models often ignore them. In a first project, we will study both empirically and theoretically seasonal fluctuations in housing markets. We view this as an important first step to shed light on the models needed to describe housing markets. A second project will build on these modelling implications to develop a macroeconomic framework that accounts for lower-frequency fluctuations in housing markets; in particular, we will study the effects of different economic shocks and optimal policy responses, with particular attention to the mechanism through which initial shocks get amplified and transmitted to the rest of the economy. The second strand will seek to understand and quantify the role of international trade, and in particular the emergence of China and India, in explaining the sharp decline in the volatility of aggregate fluctuations experienced by most advanced economies since the mid 1980s. Concretely, the project will ask both theoretically and empirically the extent to which counting on a wider pool of input suppliers from non-traditional trading partners has mitigated the effect of economic shocks on output and prices. As an auxiliary tool, a second project will develop a new econometric test for model selection. The final strand has two main branches. In the first, we will propose a model to study the role of optimality of employment relations in the transmission mechanism of monetary policy. In the second, we will develop a model to asses the role of liquidity in the transmission mechanism. Testable implications from these two models will be empirically assessed.

Keywords: economic fluctuations,housing markets,monetary policy,volatility,international trade,nominal rigidity,financical liquidity