Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Gain controls in parallel visual pathways of the mouse (PVPITM)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-CIG, 2013)
Start date: 2013-12-01
End date: 2017-11-30
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Research in neurophysiology has identified potentially canonical mechanisms and circuits that are repeated across multiple brain regions. A classic example of a canonical computation is gain control,which in sensory pathways allows neurons to adapt their dynamic range to the statistics of the local environment. Gain control has been most studied in the visual pathway, where it helps make neurons sensitive to both spatial and temporal context. Yet many parallel nerve pathways leave the eye and terminate in different brain nuclei. It is not known whether each of these pathways use different forms of gain control or whether the same mechanisms are used throughout. This project will measure the activity of populations of nerve cells in the two major target nuclei in the brain - the lateral geniculate nucleus, and the superior colliculus - of mice. In anaesthetised mice we will characterise the gain controls that are present in these different nuclei, to understand their similarities and differences. Paired recordings from these two brain areas will be used to establish how gain controls differ in neurons that get input from the same retinal sources. In additional experiments we will make recordings from these areas in awake mice, in the presence and absence of a visual task. In each case we will characterise the gain controls and functional connectivity of neurons to establish how gain controls modulate the flow of information during visual processing. Our work will therefore provide knowledge of whether gain control forms a single canonical mechanism, or if it is used flexibly to support specific computational requirements.

Keywords: systems neuroscience,sensory systems,mouse,visual system,neuroanatomy and neurophysiology,behavioral neuroscience,computational neuroscience
Molecular Regulation of Dendritic Tree Formation during Neocortical Development (DENDRITICDEV)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Sweden
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-CIG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-08-01
End date: 2018-12-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

This grant would support the establishment of a dynamic research group in the field of molecular neurobiology at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. The PI is a Portuguese national with a PhD from the University of London, and is currently a junior team leader at the Charité Medical University, Berlin. The group analyses the molecular regulation of neuronal dendritic tree formation during early development of the mouse neocortex. The neocortex is the region of the brain required for complex tasks such as thought and decision-making. Neocortical neurons have highly elaborate branched dendritic trees containing small protrusions called spines that are the main site of information input to the neuron. Defects in the formation of the dendritic tree are at the base of most viable neurodevelopmental disorders, including mental retardation and autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). Unfortunately, very little is known about the molecular mechanisms that regulate formation of the dendritic tree during normal or abnormal development. The aim of this project is to analyze the role of new players we recently identified, in promoting dendritic tree branching and spine formation in the mammalian neocortex. In particular, we will analyse novel roles of NOMA-GAP, a protein that triggers neocortical dendritic development (Rosario et al. Genes Dev 2012), and newly identified binding partners in directing these processes during brain development. Our approach combines the use of transgenic mouse models, primary neuronal cultures and in vivo manipulation of signalling pathways in the mouse by in utero electroporation, as well as analysis of mouse behaviour. This powerful combination of techniques will allow us to identify novel signalling pathways involved in brain development and to link these not only to the regulation of cellular and cerebral function but also to disease-associated changes in animal behaviour, thereby providing a unifying picture of how disorders such as ASDs arise

Keywords: neocortex,neuronal development,autism,dendritic branching,spines,signalling,noma-gap,rhogtpases,psd95,mouse
AESTHETICS OF DECOLONISATION: ARTISTS, MODERNISMS AND NATION-STATES IN INDIA, WEST AND EAST PAKISTAN, 1947-71 (AOD)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Netherlands
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-CIG, 2013)
Start date: 2013-10-01
End date: 2017-09-30
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

AESTHETICS OF DECOLONISATION will study artists, ideologies, and cultural imaginaries across the split political contexts of India and Pakistan. It will cover the climactic decades of decolonisation, from the exit of British rule and the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 to a second partition and the War of Liberation in 1971 that splintered East Pakistan from West, forming the current Bangladesh. Retreating from this theatre of border conflict, war, displacement, and genocide, this project will instead foreground cultural governance, and artistic dialogues and negotiations, from the early post-colonial decades. It will focus on the new categories of ‘artist-bureaucrats’ and ‘artist-pedagogues’ from India, East and West Pakistan, and follow their trajectories through postwar global collaborative forums like the UNESCO, the Commonwealth, and post-Bandung Afro-Asian solidarities, and the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, as well as the art worlds of the Eastern Bloc. It will ask new questions, disclose new archival material, and forge new analytical tools to connect ‘national’ and ‘vernacular’ artistic imaginaries to trans-national debates on universal and partisan art habitually steeped in Cold War rhetoric. Developing interdisciplinary tools to read, merge, and juxtapose political and cultural modernities during decolonisation, AESTHETICS OF DECOLONISATION will raise the following questions: How can we conceptualise post-colonial art from South Asia as a ‘region’ beyond tense national frontiers? How can the national-vernacular-global triad be activated as a conceptual frame to map alternative geographies of twentieth-century artistic modernisms? How can new ‘non-Western’ art histories historicise the contemporary in Asian Cultural Studies? And finally, how can we develop cross-national analytical models that will connect the distinctly national narratives of post-colonial art from the Global South?

Keywords: south asian modern art,decolonisation,post-colonial,cold war,commonwealth,afro-asian art,unesco,cultural administration,heritage,aesthetics,art pedagogy,asian modernisms,world art
Extending the Optic atrophy 1 dependent cristae remodeling: from models to a rationale for therapy of autosomal dominant optic atrophy (CRISTOPA1)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Italy
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-CIG, 2013)
Start date: 2013-10-01
End date: 2017-09-30
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Autosomal dominant optic atrophy (ADOA) is caused by mutations in Optic Atrophy 1 (OPA1), a dynamin-related protein of the inner mitochondrial membrane. During the last years, we clarified that OPA1 is a multifunctional protein participating in genetically distinct pathways of mitochondrial fusion and cristae remodelling, both impaired by pathogenetic mutations. We extended our investigation on the (dys)function of OPA1 and our preliminary results indicate that (i) OPA1 is a key modulator of apoptosis and autophagy in vivo; (ii) OPA1 is a master regulator of mitochondrial cristae architecture, impacting on respiratory chain supercomplex assembly and mitochondrial metabolism; (iii) increased autophagy in axons of retinal ganglion cells carrying pathogenic OPA1 depletes them of mitochondria; (iv) OPA1 resides in multimolecular complexes that comprise potential keyregulators of its multiple functions. We therefore hypothesize that by engaging in interactions with different partners, OPA1 regulates mitochondrial functions. Its mutations increase autophagy and susceptibility to apoptosis, especially in RGCs. These multiple regulatory points offer several potential targets for therapeutic strategies that can interfere with the natural course of the disease. In order to verify our hypothesis, we plan to address: (i) how OPA1 regulates mitochondrial metabolism from the cristae; (ii) how changes in OPA1 levels and function impinge on autophagy, especially in RGC; (iii) if the changes in mitochondrial metabolism and autophagy can be exploited therapeutically in vitro and in vivo. This integrated approach aims at unraveling the pathogenesis of ADOA, and therefore to pave the way for its treatment. At the same time, we expect to clarify how mitochondria participate in key cellular metabolic and quality control processes.

Keywords: mitochondria,fusion/fission,cristae,opa1,respiratory chain supercomplexes
The mechanics of nuclear division and positioning (MECHANICUS)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Portugal
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-CIG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-01-01
End date: 2017-12-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

During mitosis the genetic material of the mother cell is separated and distributed between two daughter cells. Responsible for this coordinated segregation is an assembly of polymers, molecular motors and adapter proteins– the mitotic spindle. This super-molecular machine moves the chromosome halves in opposite directions over impressive cellular scales (tens of µm) within a relatively short time (minutes). The regulatory biochemical pathways responsible for timing and error-control of mitosis have been extensively studied and the key factors have been identified. The major mechanical determinants are thought to be a combination of polymerization dynamics and molecular motor activity but what remains elusive is how such individual processes lead to directed movement in a large cytoskeletal assembly, and how active force generation is balanced to prevent structural collapse. Understanding the mechanical properties responsible for pulling chromosomes is at the heart of spindle function, which is critical to the life cycle of a cell. This knowledge is pivotal in developing biomedical applications. Here, I propose to investigate the mechanical basis leading to directed movement of chromosomes during segregation and how mechanical load is distributed in the spindle throughout mitosis. I plan to unravel the molecular nature of force leading to nuclear migration following segregation, an essential process in large egg cells. The experimental foundation for my studies is a recently developed cell-free assay using the genetically tractable Drosophila, providing complete accessibility to every mitotic event with time-lapse imaging and mechanical manipulation. This project lies at the interdisciplinary interface between mechanical engineering, microscopy, biochemistry and fly genetics. The basic concepts for the planned experiments are speckle microscopy, spatial constraining, mechanical relaxation and compression in combination with genetic and pharmaceutical perturbation.

Keywords: biomechanics,cytoskeleton,spindle,cell-free system,nuclear division,chromosome segregation,forces,live imaging,microtubule,motor protein,drosophila
Cortico-Spinal Motor Neurons in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis : Contribution, Mechanisms and Therapy (CORTICAL-ALS)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: France
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-CIG, 2013)
Start date: 2013-09-01
End date: 2017-08-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The long-term goal of this proposal is to shed light on the contribution of cortical upper motor neurons to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, in order to design and test alternative therapies based on the protection and/or the replacement of this exact neuronal population. Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is the most common and the most severe adult-onset neurodegenerative disease of the motor system, leading to death two to five years after diagnosis. ALS is clinically defined as the combined degeneration of two specific neuron types: upper motor neurons (UMN, corticospinal motor neurons), located in the cerebral cortex and that extend axons to the medulla and spinal cord, and lower motor neurons (LMN, spinal motor neurons), located in the medulla and spinal cord and that connect to the skeletal muscles. This dual neuronal impairment distinguishes ALS from other, much less severe, motor diseases affecting either UMN only or LMN only. Despite this clear description, it is striking to note that preclinical studies on ALS have, so far, mostly focused on LMN. Recent advances in the fields of corticogenesis have provided scientists with new molecular implements allowing now to bypass the cellular complexity of the neocortex, and to study specific cortical neuronal subtypes (e.g. UMN), not only in the embryo but also in the diseased adult mouse. Here, we propose to take advantage of these new tools, to understand the role of specific UMN degeneration in the onset and progression of ALS. More specifically, we will i) determine whether specific UMN degeneration in ALS induces, results, or is independent from LMN degeneration; ii) unravel the molecular mechanisms that trigger specific UMN degeneration in ALS; and iii) induce the generation of new UMN, within the brain of the diseased mouse, and determine their effects on LMN survival, motor behavior and life expectancy. The expected results are meant to instruct the development of alternative therapeutic approaches to ALS.

Keywords: upper motor neurons,amyotrophic lateral sclerosis,conditional mutant mouse,molecular signaling,neurodegeneration,directed differentiation,adult neural stem cells,sub-ventricular zone.
Revitalizing EFL Teachers' Professional Development in Europe through Innovative Programs (EFLTEACHERS)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Türkiye
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-CIG, 2013)
Start date: 2013-09-01
End date: 2018-10-06
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Education First (EF) has been testing millions of adult English language learners’ proficiency for the last two years. According to their 2012 English Proficiency Index , Turkey is in the “low proficiency” category and shares the 32nd ranking among 54 countries in the survey. It is stated in the EF report that “Europe’s English is the best of any region, but some European countries need to get serious about teaching English to a high level if they are to keep up with their neighbors.” (p.3). The current project, EFL Teachers, shares EF’s concern; therefore aims to make significant contributions to the foreign language learning endeavors of people in Europe, particularly in Turkey. Unlike traditional research which generally examines individual student characteristics and teachers’ instructional practices in the classroom, this project takes EFL teachers as the starting point with the standpoint of “language teachers themselves are language learners, too.” The researcher will first analyze EFL teachers’ individually guided activities and identify the needs for innovative professional development programs, then develop a website for resource-sharing, hold workshops on reflective practice and emerging technologies as well as designing and delivering professional development webinars for EFL teachers. The EFL Teachers project has three objectives to achieve: 1) to investigate foreign language teachers’ professional development activities in Turkey in order to identify any needs for new professional development programs, 2) to analyze the current professional development practices in two purposefully-chosen European countries: Italy and Sweden, 3) to create new professional development programs (e.g., webinars and workshops) based on these needs, and 4) to share the programs with the target population and the general public.

Keywords: teacher professional development,reflective practice,foreign language education,sla research,transcendence,individually guided activities,instructional technology,instructional design,webinar
Rural Development, Food Security and Political Stability in Iraq (RUDEFOPOS-IRAQ)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Spain
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-CIG, 2013)
Start date: 2013-12-01
End date: 2017-11-30
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

RUDEFOPOS-IRAQ will assess what role food security and rural development have played in the politics of current and former regimes in Iraq, how such politics have played out in the prevalent networks of patronage and rent distribution and how they have affected international relations of the country, most notably during the Oil-for-Food Program episode of the 1990s and in the hydropolitics with Turkey and Syria. Iraq is the only country in the Middle East of which domestic archives exist. The archives of the Iraqi government and the Baath party were brought to the US after 2003. RUDEFOPOS-IRAQ will take advantage of these exceptional sources in addition to newspaper, data by international organizations, grey material and interviews. It will then link back its specific findings with the existing literature about Iraq’s political economy and international relations in general. To examine challenges to food security on a household level comparative surveys in rural and urban communities will be undertaken. Iraq offers an interesting case study in the Middle East, not only because sanctions and war have affected food security and economic development like in no other country in the region. In terms of per capita resource endowments it stands between the oil rich Gulf states and semi-rentier states like Egypt or Syria that have to rely on modest and dwindling oil production and indirect participation in oil rent flows via migrant remittances and aid payments. Iraq is also of great importance to the European Union, not only because of its political instability, but also because of its economic potential. It has the fastest growing oil exports in the Middle East, is a potential source of natural gas for the planned Nabucco pipeline and holds 9 percent of the world’s phosphate reserves.

Keywords: rural development,food security,political transition,middle east.
Institutions and Individuals in the Distribution of Welfare in Europe (WELEU)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Türkiye
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-CIG, 2013)
Start date: 2013-08-01
End date: 2017-07-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The proposed project aims to develop a new approach in welfare state studies using new conceptualization and the state of the art statistical techniques. This fresh approach will be used to analyze the roles of four main welfare institutions—namely the state, the family, the market, and local actors in the distribution of welfare shaped by the intersections of age, class, gender, and race relations in Europe. In order to achieve this overall objective, the following three specific objectives will be important in this project. First, this project aims to develop a new approach in welfare state and social policy studies to understand the distribution of welfare that is shaped by the intersections of age, class, gender, and race relations. Second, by comparing different societies, it is aimed to analyze future social, economic, and demographic challenges to the welfare regimes particularly with reference social inequalities. Third, it aims to reassess welfare regime typology and examine the question of path dependency of welfare policies. The methodology to be used in analyzing the welfare of the old in the various regimes depends on quantitative and qualitative secondary data and previous studies on welfare states and social policies. Since this is a cross-national research, mostly comparative data on social policies, social welfare, and demographic indicators will be used from the EuroStat and other data resources which provide comparative data for researchers.

Keywords: sociology,social policy,welfare distribution,europe,inequality,path dependency,comperative research