Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Hedging under Friction and Uncertainty: Theory and Numerics (HEDGING)

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: Israel
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-CIG, 2013)
Start date: 2013-11-01
End date: 2017-10-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

In this project our goal is to deal with a class of hedging and pricing problems which arise in modern Mathematical Finance. These problems are not only interesting from the applications point of view but also provide a good source for new mathematical questions which require new tools in the area of probability theory. We will focus on three main topics: (i) Hedging with Friction. (ii) Robust Hedging. (iii) Numerical Schemes. All the above topics are related to the theory of pricing and hedging of derivative securities. In the last 35 years there was great progress in this direction. By now there is quite a good understanding of pricing and hedging in frictionless financial markets with a known probabilistic structure. This understanding was achieved by developing the machinery of stochastic calculus, stochastic control, martingale theory, hypothesis testing, etc. In real market conditions, it is very difficult to provide a correct probabilistic model for the behavior of stock prices. Furthermore, trading of assets is subject to transaction costs, i.e. there is a gap between an ask price and the bid price. These two facts raise the natural question of understanding hedging in markets with friction and model uncertainty. Usually, when dealing with complex models of financial markets, explicit formulas for option prices and the corresponding super--replication strategies are not available. This is the motivation to study numerical schemes for several stochastic control problems which are related to hedging under volatility uncertainty. In the current project we are interested not only in providing the algorithms of numerical schemes, but also in implementing them. In summary, the proposed questions are not only crucial for the understanding of pricing and hedging in financial markets, but also a great source of new mathematical problems. These problems require new tools and also attract the attention of world class mathematicians.

Keywords: hedging with friction,robust hedging,$g$--expectations,optimal stopping,strong approximation theorems,weak convergence
Bioartificial Pancreas refinement (BAPREFINEMENT)

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: Austria
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-CIG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-09-01
End date: 2018-08-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The proposed project aims at making a substantial contribution to the success of bioartificial pancreases and thus to a cure for type 1 diabetes (T1D). The latter is an autoimmune disease that destroys pancreatic beta cells which are responsible for insulin production. Mostly it strikes at a young age. Patients depend on frequent insulin injections for the rest of their life. Despite these burdensome injections, acute and long-term complications are frequent and often severe. Beta cell transplantation represents the only means of restoring physiological blood glucose control in T1D patients. But it has been hampered by a shortage of donor organs and the detrimental effects of immune suppressive medication. The latter can be circumvented by encapsulation of beta cells prior to implantation. Efforts to translate this concept of the so-called bioartificial pancreas into a clinical product have proven difficult due to poor survival of the transplanted beta cells. The current proposal aims at (1) introducing a novel type of surrogate beta cell which is much more robust than native islet cells and (2) establishing the use of an encapsulation material with superior biocompatibility. These two advancements combined are likely to improve survival and long-term functionality of the bioartificial pancreas. The researcher masterminding this project has spent the last 5 years in a bioencapsulation company in Asia’s biotech hub Singapore, most recently in the role as Chief Scientist. The host organisation, the Vorarlberg Institute for Vascular Investigation and Treatment (VIVIT), is a centre of excellence for basic and clinical research on vascular diseases and diabetes. With the researcher on board, the VIVIT is currently establishing its cell encapsulation capability and applying it to diabetes therapy. This is by far not the only area where researcher and host organisation complement each other but it is one of the most timely and relevant topics in applied diabetes research.

Keywords: bioartificial pancreas,diabetes,insulin,islet transplantation,encapsulation,beta cells,cell-based therapy,surrogate beta cells,immune protection,advanced-therapy medicinal products
Strain, Lattice, Interactions and Entanglement in novel Two-Dimensional materials. (LSIE_2D)

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: 2013-09-01
End date: 2016-08-31
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 75000.0
EU funding (EUR): 75000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The isolation of graphene in 2004 has triggered the most promising expectations in the field of condensed matter. One of the main drawbacks for realistic application is however the lack of a band gap in single layer compounds. To overcome this shortcoming, alternative two-dimensional materials, like MoS2 and other dichalcogenides, are recently becoming popular, with the advantage of presenting an intrinsic gap. One of the interesting aspects of these materials is the possibility of modulating the electronic properties by means of controlled external sources, as for instance strain and other lattice effects. The scenario is here much richer and promising than graphene since the valleys degrees of freedom are here strongly entangled with the spin and with the orbital degrees of freedom, suggesting that new channels to manipulate the electronic, transport, optical properties of these materials are here possible. In this project we will investigate at the microscopic level the fundamental physical mechanisms that control the electronic, transport and optical properties of these layered materials. Motivated by the evidence that pressure and strain can induce sizable remarkable effects on the band structure, we will address the issue of the electron-lattice coupling in a wider context, investigating how these effects are operative at a local scale, how they will depend on the number of layers and their stacking order, on external electric fields, etc. Probably even more interesting, motivated by the strong entanglement between charge/lattice/spin/orbital degrees of freedom, is the study how the manipulation of one different degree can tune the other ones. Objective of the program is to identify suitable specific mechanisms of tunable interplay between the different degrees of freedom and to investigate at the largest possible extent their physical properties.

Keywords: low-dimensional materials,dichalcogenides,strain,spin,valley entanglement,superconductivity,broken symmetry states
Quantum Spin Simulators Based on Defects in Diamond (NV QUANTUM SIMULATOR)

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: Israel
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-CIG, 2013)
Start date: 2013-11-01
End date: 2017-10-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Quantum interacting systems lie at the forefront of contemporary physics, posing challenges to our understanding of quantum phases, many-body dynamics, and a variety of condensed matter phenomena. Also, advances in quantum applications, including quantum computation and metrology, rely on interactions to create entanglement and to improve sensitivity beyond the standard quantum limit. In particular, the generation of large-scale, many-body entanglement in solid-state systems is a long-standing goal for many applications of quantum science. These outstanding problems attract substantial theoretical attention, leading to the development of remarkable techniques, ranging from renormalization group approaches to exact solutions in certain cases. However, in most cases it is necessary to resort to approximations and perturbative analysis. Thus in recent years tremendous effort has been invested into developing precision experimental tools to simulate many-body Hamiltonians, with realizations so far in cold atomic systems and trapped ions. Here we propose a complementary experimental approach using Nitrogen-Vacancy (NV) color centers in diamond as a quantum many-body spin simulator. The NV center is an atom-like spin defect in a robust solid, with remarkable optical properties and a long electronic spin coherence lifetime. NV-diamond has been applied successfully to magnetic field sensing and demonstrations of spin-based quantum information processing. The goal of this project is to advance this new paradigm of atomic-like spin defects in the solid state as a simulator for quantum many-body spin systems, offering a platform for creating long-range interactions, quantum spin phases, and quantum computing resources. This approach holds the promise to advance the state-of-the-art by providing powerful new tools for measurement and control, and a unique quantum test-bed lying between “clean” ultracold atomic systems and “dirty” condensed matter systems.

Keywords: nv centers in diamond,quantum many-body physics,quantum spin simulators,many-body entanglement,quantum information processing,super-resolution microscopy,cryogenics
Human frontal lobe contributions to executive function and executive dysfunction (HUMAN PFC FUNCTION)

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

Adaptability is a defining characteristic of the human species. Our ability to solve logical problems, to plan ahead, to focus despite distraction and to adapt when circumstances change far exceeds that of even our closest relatives. These abilities are closely associated with the most developed structure in the human brain: the frontal lobes. When the frontal lobes are damaged, the consequence is can be a debilitating impairment referred to as ‘dysexecutive syndrome’. Dysexecutive syndrome is one of the most commonly documented cognitive impairments across psychiatric and neurological populations. Whilst in many ways, dysexecutive patients may be unimpaired, with normal speech, perception and motor control, they are often unable to lead normal lives, because their behaviour becomes disorganised, disinhibited, maladaptive, and socially inappropriate. The long-term outlook for such patients can be particularly poor as they cannot adapt to their environments or maintain normal relationships. Despite this clinical importance, even the most rudimentary questions regarding how the frontal lobes support executive cognition remain controversial. For example, it is unknown how many specialised circuits exist within the frontal lobes or relatedly what the different forms of executive process are that those circuits support. Consequently, the questions of how dysexecutive patients should most appropriately be categorised and how they may most effectively be treated remain altogether unclear. The overarching aim of the current proposal is to impact on these issues by applying a multidisciplinary research program to: 1) advance our understanding of the neural mechanisms by which the frontal lobes support executive cognition; 2) leverage that understanding in order to provide novel tools to improve patient stratification; and 3) develop novel Internet-based tools that can deliver automated, affordable and accessible supplements to traditional face-to-face therapies.

Keywords: human cognition,frontal lobes,adaptability,brain imaging,cognitive training,ehealth,executive function,traumatic brain injury,dysexecutive syndrome.
Notch and epithelial proliferation (PRONO)

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

During development the different organs and tissues of an organism have to grow harmoniously to reach their specific shapes and sizes. In the adult, organs have usually reached an equilibrium, where loss of cells must be compensated by tightly regulated proliferation. During cancer, groups of cells evade these controls and start to proliferate abnormally. The Notch intercellular signalling pathway is very conserved throughout evolution and directs a wide variety of cell fate decisions and behaviours. The specificity of outcome relies on the implementation of different transcriptional programmes. For instance, in certain epithelia from very diverse animals, Notch controls epithelial cell proliferation and tissue growth. In order to identify the genes mediating this effect of Notch, using genomic approaches, I have identified the direct Notch targets during wing discs hyperplasia in Drosophila. Functional analysis revealed complex cross regulation between targets and feed forward logic loops. What are the important functional nodes of the network of genes activated by Notch, and how does it operate? The current proposal seeks to reach an unprecedented detailed description of the Notch network mediating epithelial proliferation in Drosophila both during hyperplastic and neoplastic growth. More specifically, and using a combination of genome-wide approaches and elegant functional validation through Drosophila genetics, my aims are: - describe the global microRNAs response to Notch in hyperplastic Drosophila wing discs and understand how it shapes the Notch network during hyperplasia; - understand how this network is reshaped during the transition from hyperplastic to neoplastic growth, and identify a neoplastic specific programme; Critical aspects of the Notch network governing tissue growth, are likely to be conserved. Therefore, insights coming from our fly studies will drive new hypothesis to understand Notch driven tumorigenesis of human solid cancers.

Keywords: notch signalling,epithelial polarity,drosophila,proliferation,transcription
Sensory integration for limb localization and action (LOCANDMOTION)

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: 2013-09-01
End date: 2015-05-31
Duration (months): 21.0
Total project cost (EUR): 43750.0
EU funding (EUR): 43750.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

We rarely experience difficulty localizing our limbs. We can easily describe the location of our left hand or point to it with our right, and we can do this with our eyes open or closed. Moreover, we never have the sensation that our hand is in two locations simultaneously, even though we simultaneously process two distinct sources of information (vision and proprioception) about its current location. This project examines how vision and proprioception are combined to generate estimates of hand and target locations. The proposal tests the hypothesis that proprioception resists re-alignment by vision and that inter-sensory alignment is not needed for effective action. We apply an optimal cue combination approach to understanding the interaction between vision and proprioception, building from theoretical groundwork laid by Ernst and Banks (2002) and Smeets et al. (2006). The knowledge acquired from the proposed research should assist our understanding of sensory integration; it should also improve our understanding of how people adapt to virtual reality, mixed reality, and teleoperation systems, such that these systems can be optimally structured for comfortable use and accurate performance. The project’s success will rely on the combination of the applicant’s prior research experience in Canada (specifically in motor adaptation) and the host organisation’s resources and faculty expertise. The Vision and Control of Action (VISCA) group at the University of Barcelona provides the researcher with access to multiple virtual reality systems, and members of the faculty have expertise in sensorimotor integration, particularly as it relates to moving in virtual environments.

Keywords: vision,proprioception,sensory integration,sensory alignment,action
Study of epithelial stem cells, pathophysiology and therapy (EPI-PATHO-STEM)

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: Israel
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 stratified epithelium of the skin (epidermis) and the cornea share common characteristics in term of structure, function and developmental origin. These tissues which line the external surface of the mammalian body and eye are multi-layered tightly packed tissues providing protection against infections, injuries and water loss. Although skin stem cell therapy have been firstly reported 3 decades ago, in 1984, ex vivo expansion of stem cell and the maintenance of their multi potency is poor. Consequently, grafts are totally deficient of hair follicles, sweat and sebaceous glands which are essential for functionality. Additionally, investigation of the embryonic events that accompany human congenital diseases is limited due to ethical issues and the lack of appropriate models. Therefore, a better understanding of the molecular circuitry that underlies these biological processes is essential for designing innovative therapeutic approaches. My lab will be devoted to exploring the mechanisms of regulation of stem cell homeostasis, and pathophysiology of the skin and the cornea. In my previous studies, we have generated a new induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) model for skin and corneal pathophysiology, and identified microRNAs that are required for epithelial stem cell regulation and lineage commitment. In addition, we unraveled a subset of genes that are regulated by p63 during embryonic development. Here we aim to (i) investigate the role of microRNA and p63-pathways in epithelial development and stem cell maintenance, (ii) generate and explore patient-specific iPSC as a new model for the research of genetic diseases, and (iii) develop innovative therapeutic approaches based on iPSC, gene therapy and pharmacology. Altogether, our study will provide insightful mechanistic details on epithelial lineage commitment and stem cell regulation in physiological conditions and pathology, and will pave the way for therapy.

Keywords: pluripotent stem cells,epithelial stem cells,skin,cornea,p63,pax6,microrna
Gauge theories in 5 and lower dimensions: string perspective, holographic avatars and exact results (GT5LD2013)

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: 2014-03-01
End date: 2018-02-28
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Quantum field theory is an absolutely central tool in our understanding of Nature, with applications ranging from condensed matter physics to particle physics. It is therefore urging to understand its most deepest secrets as much as possible. This is specially important in strongly coupled situations in which traditional tools cannot be applied. This proposal strives to develop new understanding of quantum field theories in diverse dimensions, specially in strongly coupled situations. In particular, it addresses the up-to-now poorly explored case of five-dimensional gauge theories. Although naively non-renormalizable and hence dependent on their particular UV completion, it turns out that under certain circumstances they can be at fixed points with remarkable properties, such as exceptional enhanced symmetries. Besides, it has very recently been argued that in some cases 5d theories can incorporate in their non-perturbative spectra their own UV completion. In fact, it has been suggested that such completion, for the maximally supersymmetric case, is the mysterious 6d N=(2, 0) conformal field theory. By making extensive use of the gauge/gravity duality as well as the newest developed tools for the study of supersymmetric gauge theories (in particular indices and exact partition functions), I plan to advance in the understanding of gauge theories, in particular in 5d and their connections with other dimensions. The success of this proposal will not only help towards the deeper understanding of gauge theories in various dimensions, but will also contribute to the development of the community. Indeed, an integral part of the proposal is both the dissemination of science for the general public as well as teaching at undergraduate and graduate level. Thus, by supporting this proposal the european community in general and the region where it will take place --Asturias, Spain-- will benefit from the high degree of expertise and training of the researcher.

Keywords: gauge theories,supersymmetric theories,string theory,ads/cft,branes