Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Heterotrophic activity and Ecology of abundant versus RAre marine bacterial phylotypes (HERA)

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-IEF-2008, 2008)
Start date: 2009-05-04
End date: 2011-05-03
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 161162.47
EU funding (EUR): 161162.47
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The recent discovery of a large number of low abundance bacterial phylotypes, coined the ‘rare biosphere’, coexisting next to a few abundant phylotypes raises a number of fundamental questions concerning their role in the microbial food web and their functioning in the biogeochemical cycles, mainly driven by prokaryotes in the ocean. HERA addresses some of these basic questions concerning the role of the ‘rare biosphere’ in coastal European waters using a set of different approaches and recent technological advances. The first approach is to use fractionation of the complex bacterial community by flow cytometry and high speed cell sorting and cell sorting by capillary electrophoresis, the latter based on the specific surface charge of bacteria. This fractionated community will then be subjected to PCR and two fingerprinting techniques, T-RFLP and ARISA. The other approach, to obtain more detailed information on the phylogeny of the ‘rare biosphere’ vs. abundant phylotypes is based on cell sorting of individual populations, enumerating their abundance and using highly multiple displacement amplification (MDA) and subsequently, cloning and sequencing. With this approach, the phylogeny and the abundance of the individual components of the ‘rare biosphere’ will be compared with that of the abundant phylotypes. Leucine incorporation in bacteria and subsequent fractionation will allow comparing the cell-specific growth rates of abundant vs. rare phylotypes. A similar approach is used to determine the phylotype-specific ectoenzymatic activity. Taken together, the combination of approaches will allow us answering some of the fundamental but unsolved questions on the role of the rare biosphere in the microbial food web and in the biogeochemical cycles in coastal seas. The study will be performed over a seasonal cycle hence, we will be able to resolve the enigma whether members of the ‘rare biosphere’ can attain high or low abundance shaping to the organic matter cycling.

Keywords: aquatic ecology,biochemical and hydrological cycles,coastal site,marine prokaryotes
Nitrogen removal in coastal sediments: molecular microbial ecology of nitrate reducing bacteria (NITRICOS)

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,Spain
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-ERG-2008, 2008)
Start date: 2009-03-16
End date: 2012-07-16
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 45000.0
EU funding (EUR): 45000.0
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

Eutrophication of estuarine and coastal ecosystems due to increased anthropogenic inputs of nitrogen is an increasing problem. Benthic microbial processes can in part alleviate this by removing a significant part of the load. Nitrate in marine sediments can be removed by two main functional groups of bacteria. Bacterial denitrifiers reduce nitrate or nitrite to gases subsequently lost from the aquatic environment, while nitrate ammonifiers reduce nitrate to ammonium that remains in the system. In addition, a novel process, anammox can also remove significant amounts of N in certain environments. However, a product of denitrification is the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide. Understanding the benthic processes involved in the removal of nitrogen, or the formation of nitrous oxide, is important for the management and reduction of nutrient load to coastal waters and greenhouse gases emissions. Although denitrification has been studied extensively, the other two processes and the factors that regulate the competition between these groups of bacteria remain largely unknown. Objectives of the project is to (1) link the distribution of gene abundance coding for key enzymes in the benthic nitrate reducing community and relate these to process rates and (2) study the environmental factors that influence the competition between the different functional groups of nitrate reducing bacteria. To accomplish this, we will apply modern molecular (eg. real time PCR) and biogeochemical (eg. stable isotopes, microelectrodes) techniques in an interdisciplinary way. The results will allow to test the hypotheses that changes in the availability of electron acceptors and donors result in differences in the distribution of functional genes and groups of nitrate reducers and that differences in rates and relative importance of key nitrogen processes along an estuarine gradient are related with changes in the expression of the corresponding functional genes.

Keywords: biogeochemistry (climate change),coastal ecosystems,anthropogenic impact,nitrate reduction,denitrification,nitrate ammonification,anammox,nutrient load,molecular ecology,functional genes
NOVEL EFFICIENT CATALYSTS FOR BIO-SYNGAS CONVERSION TO C2-C4 ALCOHOLS (GAS2ALCO)

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: Greece
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-ERG-2008, 2008)
Start date: 2009-03-16
End date: 2012-03-15
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 45000.0
EU funding (EUR): 45000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Bioethanol is currently produced primarily by fermentation of sugars, an expensive and energy intensive process. Gasification of biomass to synthesis gas (H2/CO), followed by catalytic conversion of syngas, could produce significant amounts of fuel grade C2-C4 alcohols that can be blended in gasoline. However, the catalytic conversion of syngas to higher alcohols still remains challenging and no commercial process exists today. R&D achievements necessary to make this process viable include the development of improved active and selective C2-C4 alcohol synthesis catalysts operating at mild conditions, the elucidation of the reaction mechanism and kinetics via advanced mechanistic and micro kinetic studies and the exploration of different engineering routes and advanced reactor configuration concepts. The main objective of the proposed project is to design a novel generic catalyst for the hydrogenation of CO to C2-C4 alcohols, operating at moderate pressures, using syngas from biomass gasification as feedstock. This technical goal is proposed to be achieved by closely linking material synthesis with advanced surface characterization to identify the nature of the active sites and kinetic and mechanistic characterization of the reaction routes. The environmental impact of the envisaged developed catalytic process will be analyzed via Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) and benchmarked against emerging technologies for 2nd generation cellulosic ethanol production. The execution of this project by the applicant will aid in her re-integration in the host organization, CERTH, and will lead to new know-how and technology based on the skills acquired by the applicant during her previous MC mobilization period. The project will enhance the skills and experience of the research fellow, contributing to a long-term career development in research.

Keywords: heterogeneous catalysis,co hydrogenation,c2-c4 fuel grade alcohol formation,syngas,alkali-promoted metal oxide nanocatalysts,mechanistic studies,life cycle analysis,environmental assessment
Optical signal regeneration in slow light silicon waveguides (OSIRIS)

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-IIF-2008, 2008)
Start date: 2009-09-28
End date: 2011-09-27
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 181350.76
EU funding (EUR): 181350.76
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

In modern optical communication systems, signal degradation in the optical channel caused by dispersion, nonlinearity and noise in the fibre is a critical issue. This issue is currently addressed with electronic devices using optical-electronic-optical (oeo) conversion, which are inefficient and expensive. Low power all-optical data processing devices, such as all-optical regenerators, offer an alternative solution. Optical regeneration can be promisingly performed using the four-wave mixing effect and is intended to reshape, re-amplify and retime the signal in the optical domain, which removes the need for oeo conversion and is transparent to the data rate. OSIRIS proposes to develop a multichannel regenerator based on four-wave mixing. The regenerator will be based on a photonic crystal waveguide that exploits slow light effects. Ideally, the FWM effect can be enhanced by the fourth power of the slowdown factor. This significant effect allows us to reduce the length of the device or the pump power, or both. OSIRIS will explore the extent to which this exciting promise can be realised in practise. The work will be based on specifically engineered slow light waveguides that the applicant developed during a 6-month visit to St. Andrews in 2007. Achievement of this goal will be demonstrated by realising efficient optical regeneration in an engineered slow light photonic crystal waveguide of only 100&apos;s of micrometres in length, using only mW&apos;s of optical power. This corresponds to two orders of magnitude improvement or better in device performance compared to the State-of-the-Art.

Keywords: signal regeneration,four-wave mixing,slow light,photonic crystal,silicon waveguide,multichannel.
Innate and adaptive immune responses to nanocell-based tumor-targeted cancer therapeutics (CD14)

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: Germany
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-IOF-2008, 2008)
Start date: 2010-03-01
End date: 2013-02-28
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 330100.59
EU funding (EUR): 330100.59
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

According to the project ‘Fighting against cancer today’ (FACT, funded by the EU 2008), molecularly targeted drugs with associated sophisticated diagnostic systems to personalize care are likely to have a great impact on cancer control in Europe. At the same time, drug delivery is going to be progressed by nanomedicines that can ferry high amounts of active drugs to the tumor. A recent achievement in developing drug delivery systems are bacterially-derived mini- or nanocells that appear to be superior to other nanovector systems, e.g. in terms of stability or packaging versatility, and that aim reaching high therapeutic efficacy with low to no toxicity. This drug-delivery system has been developed by EnGeneIC Pty Ltd in Sydney, Australia. A critical issue of the application of bacterially-derived nanocells to human beings is their inherent capability to provoke adverse immune responses, i.e. via the LPS receptor CD14. Cellular responses to this vector, to be determined as changes in the composition or the activity status of subsets of peripheral blood cells, will be addressed by this proposal. Parallel investigations will yield clues on whether individual genetic variations in molecules determining LPS sensitivity do affect safety and/or efficacy of the delivery system. Moreover, individual genetic variations in drug metabolizing molecules as well as tumor genetics will be assessed in view of therapy outcome predictivity. Research and evaluation of applicability to patients in Europe will be continued at the return host institution, the University Medical Center in Göttingen, which cares for about 13.700 cancer cases yearly, which has a strong focus on molecular tumor diagnostics and individualized medicine within the Department of Gastroenterology, and which provides expertise by experienced specialists as do the German Primate Center or the Max Planck Institutes. Collaborations are strongly envisaged to transfer knowledge most efficiently.

Keywords: nanomedicines,cancer therapeutics,endotoxin,lps
Climatic and environmental changes in the Eurasian Subarctic inferred from tree-ring and stable isotope chronologies for the past and recent periods (EU-ISOTREC)

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-IIF-2008, 2008)
Start date: 2010-03-01
End date: 2013-04-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 179667.42
EU funding (EUR): 179667.42
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The goal of this project is: • to develop a comprehensive description of the climatic and environmental changes in the Eastern Taimyr [72N-102E] for the warmest periods during the Holocene using tree ring width, latewood density, cell size, carbon and oxygen isotope data in wood and cellulose; • to improve our understanding of the physiological response of larch trees to environmental changes in the Eurasian north. We propose to investigate three periods, which are characterized by high temperatures during the Holocene: • the natural warm period BC 3700-3800, with an average temperature, which was three degrees higher than at present; • the Medieval Warm period AD 950-1150, with a similar rise in temperature compared to today; • the current period AD 1945-2006, which is characterized by the highest level of atmospheric carbon dioxide due to anthropogenic activities besides a temperature increase. The work will be conducted in three major fields: 1. Climatology – analyses of statistical relationships between climatic parameters (temperature, precipitation, relative humidity, and vapor pressure deficit) and carbon, oxygen isotope data during the current period. Comparison of isotope chronologies along the Subarctic latitudes from Yakutia to Sweden with Greenland ice core and pollen data. 2. Physiology - investigation of the physiological response of trees to environmental changes during the current and past periods based on a combined carbon and oxygen isotope fractionation model developed by Scheidegger et al. (2000). 3. Modeling – the new isotope and tree ring chronologies will be used to verify the ecophysiological model [Hemming et al. 2001; Vaganov et al. 2006] for the current period and to extend the model for the past to infer new environmental information (e.g. on water use efficiency).

Keywords: boreal forests (climate change),climate variability,climate change impact,carbon dioxide,paleoclimate,ecosystem impact
Development of structural DEsign REcommendations for STeel ARches (DERESTAR)

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: Greece
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-IEF-2008, 2008)
Start date: 2009-03-01
End date: 2010-08-31
Duration (months): 18.0
Total project cost (EUR): 116808.55
EU funding (EUR): 116808.55
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The proposed study is aimed at the investigation of the nonlinear behaviour and the development of design rules and recommendations for steel arches in the form of European Standards for construction. Today, Eurocode 3 considers only straight members. Arches have to be designed according to the same methodology and the same values of parameters as straight members. Some authors have already proposed adjustments of these parameters in order to provide higher safety and economical design of arches. Nevertheless, by using methods developed for straight elements, these authors neglect two specifics features induced by the curvature of the arch. The first one is linked with the production process: usually curved beams are produced by cold bending of straight beams, so that the distribution of locked-in stresses or residual stresses is completely different in arches in comparison to straight beams. The inelastic behaviour of arches will thus be very different. The second one is the out-of-plane bending of the arch cross-section due to the curvature. The transverse stresses that develop in a bent arch reduce the cross-sectional resistance. The proposed study will thus focus on the influence of these two phenomena on the overall inelastic behaviour of arches. This will result in an enhanced fundamental understanding of the behaviour and in the formulation of a design method for steel arches subjected to bending and compression, which may be later included in the building code.

Keywords: structural engineering,steel,arch,recommendations,eurocode,manufacturing,transverse bending,inelastic behaviour
Anonymity Enhancement for Information Society (ENONYMITY)

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-IEF-2008, 2008)
Start date: 2009-06-01
End date: 2010-09-30
Duration (months): 16.0
Total project cost (EUR): 164669.77
EU funding (EUR): 164669.77
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

While the ever increasing computational power together with the huge amount of individual data collected daily by many agencies is of great value for the society, they also arise an important threat to the privacy of individuals. In this scenario, protecting data privacy and anonymity of individuals have become a mainstream for research. Whereas privacy is a topic discussed everywhere, data anonymity recently established itself as an emerging area of computer science. Its goal is to produce useful computational solutions for releasing data, while providing scientific guarantees that the identities and other confidential information of the owners of the data being protected. This project aims at defining a framework for confidential anonymous data releasing in the Internet. In this framework, statistical agencies collect the sensitive data of individuals and protect such data using a Statistical Disclosure Control (SDC) anonymization technique to ensure the anonymity of the data owners. Anonymous data is partially accessible through the web page of the statistical agency, using a Private Information Retrieval (PIR) protocol. The PIR protocol is necessary to preserve the anonymity of the final data users. As only authorized users should have access to the anonymous data, PIR protocols have to be accessible through an anonymous web based social network, to ensure that only certain users can download data from the anonymous database. The main contribution of this project will be the development of this framework specially designed for national statistical agencies. Additionally, this project will carry out other contributions in SDC technologies, PIR protocols, anonymous communications and private social networks, which may be of independent interest.

Keywords: computer engineering
Nationalism and Antisemitism: A study on their relations, continuities and discontinuities from a sociological, political and historical perspective (RENATANTISEM)

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: Hungary
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-IEF-2008, 2008)
Start date: 2009-07-01
End date: 2011-06-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 110859.59
EU funding (EUR): 110859.59
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The aim of the project is to shed light on the connections between antisemitism and forms of political community, the guiding assumption being that nationalism has a major impact onto the manifestations of antisemitism. By means of a sociological, political and historical comparative study the manifold relationships of nationalism and antisemitism shall be traced through the 20th century in order to approach the question of “postnational constellations” (Habermas) and their impact on nationalist ideologies in current Europe. What is the designation of antisemitism in “postnational Europe”? – This is a central question of this research. As antisemitism is understood neither as a unitary nor as a static phenomenon, the continuities and discontinuities of antisemitic prejudices and their being situated in the respective social, political and historical contexts are of primary concern. The project combines an in-depth theoretical study with two empirical case studies conducted via reconstructive hermeneutic text analysis. The fin de siècle-years will be an angle on which the development of nationalism and antisemitism are analysed. Thereby, central consideration will be paid to German Youth Movement in which antisemitic and nationalist elements amalgamate to an antimodernist reaction to modernism. As second and major case study, the discourses of today’s Anti-Globalisation Movement shall be analysed as to how antisemitic, voelkisch, nationalist and antisemitic elements are used. In the way many no-global texts operate with simplifying strategies (personalisation, dichotomisation, images of world conspiracy) they show parallels to the discourses used by the voelkisch movements at the beginning of the century. Obviously, there is still a need to interpret the complex structures of modern world in simplifying terms, for which nationalism and antisemitism provide precast instruments. By means of these two case studies the specific interferences of nationalism and antisemitism shall be deciphered with regard to continuities and discontinuities alike.