Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Pb-Free Perovskites for Efficient All-Solid-State Hybrid Solar Cells (PBFREEPEROVSKITES)

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: Germany
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IEF, 2013)
Start date: 2015-02-01
End date: 2017-01-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 161968.8
EU funding (EUR): 161968.8
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Organo-lead halide perovskite absorbers offer an extremely promising solution to solar energy conversion, in line with the European Union’s 2020 renewable energy targets. This family of materials can be processed from solution utilizing common techniques and equipment developed by the printing industry, achieving power conversion efficiencies on par with the silicon industry. However, the state-of-the-art perovskite developed uses lead as the metal center, which is highly toxic and water soluble. This poses a serious environmental threat and a serious deterrent to the commercial development of this technology. Furthermore, in the usual processing scheme, toxic solvents such as DMF are used, which in combination with the carcinogenic lead salts employed make the production of these devices rather hazardous. This project seeks to address these issues via a novel solvothermal in situ bottom-up crystallization approach to form lead-free perovskite films from non-toxic solvents on a range of different substrates. The project has been designed with the idea of exploiting both the Fellow’s previous expertise in solid-state hybrid solar cell design and device physics and the Host’s expertise in the directed growth of ordered, metal-organic crystals. The expected developed devices will directly serve as commercial prototypes for the industrialization of this technology. The technology developed here will contribute to remove a significant hurdle (removal of a very toxic element) towards the implementation of an environmentally friendly alternative solar technology, thus enhancing European industrial competitiveness.

Keywords: bottom up,organo-metal,perovskite,hybrid solar cells,lead-free,pb free,self assembled monolayers,in situ crystallization,solid-state
The molecular basis for the ability of PLC zeta to stimulate mammalian embryo development. (ZETA-STIM)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Intra-European Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IEF, 2013)
Start date: 2014-09-10
End date: 2016-09-09
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 309235.2
EU funding (EUR): 309235.2
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Oocyte activation is the earliest step of embryonic development following mammalian fertilization and is triggered by a characteristic series of cytoplasmic Ca2+ transients, known as Ca2+ oscillations. Over the last decade, growing evidence indicates that the physiological agent responsible for the generation of Ca2+ oscillations and subsequent oocyte activation is a sperm-specific isoform of phospholipase C (PLC), PLC-zeta (PLCz). The sperm-borne PLCz stimulates Ca2+ oscillations in eggs after sperm-egg membrane fusion by promoting Ca2+ release via activation of the inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate (IP3) signaling pathway. PLCz is the smallest mammalian PLC comprising a tandem pair of EF hand domains, the catalytic X & Y domains and a C2 domain. PLCz hydrolyses the membrane lipid, phosphatidylinositol 4,5- bisphosphate (PIP2), to liberate IP3 which triggers calcium release from the endoplasmic reticulum. The fundamental role of PLCz in mammalian fertilization has been further highlighted by recent clinical studies that have directly linked abnormal expression profiles of PLCz with documented cases of male infertility. This fellowship will establish the molecular mechanism of fertilization in mammals by demonstrating whether PLCz is the sole sperm factor for the generation of Ca2+ oscillations. I will identify distinct intracellular egg proteins that are involved in interaction and targeting to discrete subcellular compartments a process that enables precise modulation of sperm PLCz activity. I will determine how PLCz enzymatic activity is regulated by the binding of the egg protein(s) and to which of the PLCz domains the binding occurs. Gaining an insight on the regulatory mechanism of PLCz action within the egg will facilitate the potential application of PLCz as a therapeutic for PLCz-mediated male infertility and enable a novel treatment to be provided by IVF clinics. PLCz should also help in the breeding of valuable domestic species or propagation of rare animals.

Keywords: fertility,in vitro fertilisation,sperm factor,male infertility,oocyte activation,embryo development,cell signalling,calcium oscillations
Self-assembly strategies towards optimal morphology in small molecule organic solar cells (SASOLAR13)

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-2013-IEF, 2013)
Start date: 2014-03-01
End date: 2016-02-29
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 194046.6
EU funding (EUR): 194046.6
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Organic photovoltaics (OPVs) have gained a lot of attention as versatile and cheap alternatives to their inorganic counterparts. Great improvement has been made by tuning the electronic properties of donor, D, and acceptor, A, molecules. Equally important for high efficiency devices, is the morphology and orientation of D and A molecules in the active layer because: (1) excitons created upon absorption have a finite migration length (5-20 nm), D and A domains therefore have to be small and (2) both domains have to fully percolate the active layer in order to achieve efficient charge transport and collection at the electrodes. So far, the D-A morphology has mainly been optimized by altering processing methods, such as spin-casting, (organic) vapor phase deposition and vacuum thermal evaporation, and by post-deposition annealing (e.g., using solvent vapor and / or temperature). Here we propose to encode the morphology directly into the chemical structure of the D and A molecules by using self-assembly. This way, molecular recognition between the molecules determines the morphology of the active layer. To this end, pyrene derivatives with enhanced π-π stacking have been reported, as well as molecules incorporating hydrogen-bonding motifs coupled to electronically active segments. These types of self-assembled devices had enhanced efficiency compared to their non-assembled analogues, and clearly show that self-assembly provides a new level of control over morphology. In this project, we will use self-assembling D molecules bearing large π-π stacking motifs together with hydrogen bonding arrays to hierarchically organize both D and A molecules and creating a high interfacial area, while maintaining percolation. This way exciton diffusion and splitting will be facilitated, hole mobility will be enhanced by improved interconnection of D molecules and recombination will decrease, leading to higher power conversion efficiency.

Keywords: self-assembly,organic photovoltaics,morphology,orientation,hydrogen bonds,nanowires,nanodomains,interconnectivity,hole mobility,bulk heterojunction solar cells,solar energy,small molecules
Distributive Effects and EU Private Law: Justificatory Practices of EU Institutions in a Constitutional, Methodological and Communicative Perspective (DEANDEUPL)

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: Italy
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IEF, 2013)
Start date: 2014-10-01
End date: 2016-09-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 249242.8
EU funding (EUR): 249242.8
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The project examines the role of distributive justice claims in the official discourse of EU private law. EU private law traditionally encompasses a series of Directives and Regulations enacted in order to protect consumers and employees, and the related case law of the Court of Justice of the EU. The project focuses on the use in official EU documents, such as the Commission's policy statements, impact assessment reports, preambles to EU legislative acts or judgments of the Court of Justice, of arguments focusing on the presence or absence of distributive effects. By examining the justificatory practices of Union law-making institutions the project will establish what force is ascribed to different types of arguments and explain attitudes of Union institutions by reference to four groups of factors: the proclaimed and the implicit Union values, especially those of direct relevance to EU private law, the constitutional set-up of EU private law, the methodology of distributional analysis, and the intended rhetorical effects of the discourse. The project's objective is to assess whether EU private law embraces or resists distributional analysis and whether distributive effects play a positive or a negative justificatory function. The project will explain the connection between the EU's constitutional and institutional arrangement for the creation and implementation of EU private law, including Union's fundamental constitutional principles (conferral, subsidiarity, proportionality, protection of fundamental rights and the free movement), the values and principles underlying EU private law, and national discursive practices, foundational assumptions of national private law, and prevalent traditions of legal reasoning, on the one hand, and the place and effects of distributive justice claims in EU private law, on the other. In this way it aims to contribute to the understanding of the conceptual structure of EU private law and of the values it promotes.

Keywords: eu private law,distributive justice,distributive effects,eu constitution,eu competence,eu values,eu legal discourse,national discourses in private law,legal argumentation,legal reasoning
Global challenges and bio-based economy: Assessing institutional structures, constraints and outcomes of bio-based research in Agriculture (ISCOBRA) (ISCOBRA)

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: France
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IOF, 2013)
Start date: 2014-07-15
End date: 2016-07-14
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 253450.9
EU funding (EUR): 253450.9
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The rise of the bio-based economy is expected to deliver significant benefits to society in terms of health, agriculture and environment in particular. These advances in the life sciences are increasingly relying on open cooperation and collaboration nationally, regionally and internationally. It is one of the driving forces behind the push for broader access and open systems approach for the flow of information, materials and ideas. At the same time, in the area of genetic resources — one of the major material inputs for bio-based innovations— new regulatory requirements are profoundly impacting the way life science is conducted, in particular the balance between openness and proprietary rules in research. These new global regulatory requirements are affecting the capacity of scientist to acquire new material for their research. The rise of the bio-based economy and the increase in institutional constraints over biological materials are occurring at the same time. Within this context, science policy research can no longer possible to assume that collaborators have control over the inputs to research. This project aims to analyze how global policy changes that regulate access to material inputs to research impact the evolution of norms that guide scientific research in the new bio-based economy in the agricultural sector. Specific attention is paid to changes in international scientific collaboration and impact on research outputs and outcomes. The project has identified two primary objectives. The first one aims to assess the impact of global policy changes that affect access to material inputs to research on norms, values and practices of international scientific collaboration in bio-based research for agriculture. The second one aims to better understanding the advantages and limits of various collective arrangements for biodiversity-based research in agriculture.

Keywords: science policy,genetic resources,biodiversity,agriculture,international regulations,global policy institutions,social networks,science collaboration,collaboration structure and relationships
Nanoparticle probes for photoacoustic tracking of stem cell (NANOSTEMCELLTRACKING)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Intra-European Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IEF, 2013)
Start date: 2014-04-01
End date: 2016-03-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 221606.4
EU funding (EUR): 221606.4
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Better understanding on stem cell tracking is required before regenerative medicines therapies (RMTs) can be used. However, there is not a single molecular imaging technology capable of providing the breadth of information required. For instance, while MRI offers excellent spatial resolution, sensitivity is low, whereas for SPECT/PET, the converse is true. In this context, the combination of nanotechnology and new imaging techniques such as photoacoustic imaging (PAI) emerge as potential disruptive technology. Biocompatible nanoprobes can be rationally designed to label specific cell without interfering with biological parameters such as differentiation or metabolic processes but improving the contrast of the imaging technique. Gold nanorods and more complex structures such as hollow nanoparticle or hybrids show special optical properties that enable their use as contrast agents for PAI achieving then enough sensitivity to monitor single cells. Moreover, these optical properties are easily tunable and can be adjusted to perform a multiple real time labelling thanks to the rapid acquisition and the extremely high resolution of PAI. Thus, the combination of these two technologies together will provide a non-invasive, long term, in vivo cell tracking of stem cell in models of kidney injury already developed and validated. Thus, the amelioration of fibrosis and the recovery of renal function amongst other will be assessed together with the safety studies that will include biodistribution, tumourigenesis, inflammation, systemic toxicity, etc. All together will contribute to establish efficacy and safety of RMTs.

Keywords: bioimaging,nanoparticles,stem cells,photoacoustic imaging,regenerative medicine,kidney injury
Connected Pasts and People: Identities and Complex Polities in Middle Tyrrhenian Italy (PAST-PEOPLE-NETS)

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: Italy
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IEF, 2013)
Start date: 2014-06-01
End date: 2016-05-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 241567.6
EU funding (EUR): 241567.6
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

This project investigates the development of complex polities and identities in Middle Tyrrhenian Italy by the examination of commercial, social and cultural interactions between Latins, Etruscans and other external agents such as Greeks, Phoenicians and Near Eastern peoples. It will provide an understanding of the mechanisms and causes of urbanisation and state formation in central Italy, as well as the construction of identities from the individual city-state, right up to regional (ethnic) and inter-regional levels. It will explaining ‘why’ only a few Bronze Age Etruscan and Latin villages became flourishing cities of the Archaic Period and then ‘how’ and possibly ‘why’ the Latins eventually prevailed. While the formation of competing city-states, grouped into wider regional entities and ethnic groups, in central Italy between the Late Bronze Age and the Archaic Period has long been investigated, the Etruscan and Latin systems have always been studied separately and statically.This project will go beyond traditional studies by examining both together and identifying how the entire Etruscan and Latin city-state system functioned, how it formed, worked and developed. This project building on old and new data, already available will result in publication and public dissemination. Thus this project will benefit not only academia and general audience but also policymaker because by investigating identities and polities formation mechanisms in the past will help better understand identity, cultural and power relations in the present.

Keywords: social network analysis,pre-roman italy,urbanization,state formation,identity,ethnicity,complex societies,proto-urban
Protein aggregation and toxicity in human diseases (PRAGTO)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Intra-European Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IEF, 2013)
Start date: 2014-03-01
End date: 2016-02-29
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 221606.4
EU funding (EUR): 221606.4
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

This research project deals with the role of protein aggregation in several human diseases which are connected to the formation of fibrillar protein structures. Currently, no effective pharmaceutical treatment is available for these diseases, a fact which reflects our present lack of understanding of the molecular mechanism responsible for their formation and pathogenicity. This severe lack of knowledge is in large part a consequence of the lack of suitable tools to address these questions. In this project, I propose a strategy to apply chemical kinetic analysis in combination with biophysics and biological assays to address the relationship between the mechanism of protein aggregation and its biological consequences. The study will focus on the amyloid-β peptide (Aβ), the peptide implicated in Alzheimer’s disease. The approach and the platform developed in this project will be also of relevance for a large number of other biological systems. I plan to build on the possibility open only recently by biophysical techniques to follow the time evolution of the concentration of the oligomers during the aggregation process and apply the chemical kinetic approach to measure the rate laws and identify the aggregation mechanism of the oligomers. In parallel, by performing kinetic experiments on toxicity I plan to apply the same strategy to identify the aggregation mechanism of the processes that generate toxicity, with the attractive prospective of improving our quantitative understanding of the mechanistic relationship between protein aggregation and its biological consequences. In a second stage of the project I plan to tackle the limitations of conventional biophysics in characterizing the oligomers by developing new biophysical tools based on microfluidic technology to allow the rapid characterization of heterogeneous samples in short time and improve the detection resolution of the oligomer population with respect to traditional approaches.

Keywords: protein aggregation,chemical kinetics,aggregation mechanism,oligomer,toxicity,abeta,alzheimer's disease,biophysical characterization,microfluidics
WHY VISUAL METAPHORS MATTER: METAPHOR THEORY AND THE COGNITIVE GROUNDING OF VISUAL METAPHOR. (COGVIM)

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-2013-IEF, 2013)
Start date: 2015-02-01
End date: 2017-01-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 183469.8
EU funding (EUR): 183469.8
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

This study will elucidate what type of conceptual knowledge is shared between two concepts aligned in visual metaphors, and how this differs from verbal metaphors. It will provide novel insights on the structure and functioning of the human semantic memory and on state-of-the-art computational methods of knowledge representation, with special focus on the understanding of concepts expressed in the visual and verbal modality. Since conceptual knowledge derives from both our perceptual experiences and our linguistic encounters with the involved concepts, and since the two streams of information might not fully overlap, I argue that the modality in which a metaphor is expressed triggers different sets of semantic information about the involved concepts. By employing a computational, interdisciplinary Network-Approach, I will develop a model explaining visual metaphor’s cognitive grounding in bodily experiences. This allows me to investigate the contents of our knowledge about specific concepts, and highlight the overlapping features between source and target domains of visual and verbal metaphors in different environments. I argue that the interpretation of visual metaphors might rely on conceptual knowledge that is not necessarily encoded in linguistic structures, nor commonly used in verbal communication. Bringing together the embodied theory of cognition (conceptual knowledge is rooted in bodily experiences) and the distributional Hp (words that appear in similar contexts have similar meanings), enables me to analyze the concepts involved in visual and verbal metaphors across three semantic databases accounting for: mental simulations, experiential, and linguistic contexts. The cross-disciplinary nature of this project, hosted at the prestigious Metaphor Lab lead by prof. Gerard Steen, and the Network Institute at the VU Amsterdam, will make me a bridging scholar between different disciplines: metaphor studies, cognitive, and computational linguistics.

Keywords: visual metaphors,metaphor theory,cognitive linguistics,distributional semantics,meaning interpretation,knowledge representation,corpus studies