Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Single-Hole Pumping in Silicon (SINHOPSI)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Individual Fellowships (IF)-Reintegration panel
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Physics
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF-EF) (H2020-MSCA-IF-2014, 2014)
Start date: 2016-01-11
End date: 2018-01-10
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 183454.8
EU funding (EUR): 183454.8
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

A globally consistent system of measurement units and reference standards is a necessary underpinning feature of most technological, industrial and economic activities. In fact, to perform measurements of physical quantities, record and compare them in a consistent way, systems of units and standards have been historically developed and agreed upon. However, in the last few decades, the ever-increasing need for stability and reliability has determined a shift from standards based on material artefacts or prototypes towards those based on physical phenomena and true constants of nature. The focus of this proposal is the development of a novel quantum technology to generate highly accurate electric currents directly linked to the elementary charge. This could serve as the practical implementation for a quantum-based standard for the SI unit ampere, which is a long-standing goal in electrical metrology. Semiconductor nano-scale charge pumps have been used in the last three decades to generate accurate electric currents by clocking the transport of single electrons with driving oscillators. The main limitation to the fidelity of the charge transfer is ultimately ascribable to the poor spatial confinement of electrons that produces errors during the pumping cycle. In this project silicon-based nanotechnology will be employed to realize and operate the world-first charge pump based on the transfer of single holes rather than electrons. A hole carries the positive equivalent of an elementary charge, but its effective mass can be significantly larger than the electron's. The resulting tightly confined charge carrier wavefunction is expected to provide significant benefits in suppressing pumping errors. The primary objectives will be to develop the underpinning technology to fabricate and operate the first single-hole pump, and experimentally assess its performances in comparison to the well-established electron-based technology.

Keywords: silicon nanoelectronics,charge pumping,quantum dots,quantum electrical metrology
Factorization Theory in Matrix Rings (FacT-in-MaRs)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Individual Fellowships (IF)-Standard European Fellowships
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Mathematics
Countries involved: Austria
Call: Individual Fellowships (H2020-MSCA-IF-2020, 2020)
Start date: 2021-08-02
End date: 2023-08-01
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 174167.04
EU funding (EUR): 174167.04
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

The characterization of integral domains R such that every singular matrix over R is a product of idempotent matrices is a classical open problem in ring theory. Its importance lies in the inter-connections with other big unsolved issues: classify integral domains whose general linear groups are generated by the elementary matrices, and those fulfilling weak versions of the Euclidean algorithm. The study of idempotent factorizations in matrix rings has gained increasing attention over the years and all the results have highlighted how the decomposition into idempotent factors is far from being unique. The Factorization Theory (FT) is the branch of ring theory that studies nonuniqueness of the representation of non-invertible elements in rings or semigroups as products of generating (irreducible) elements. Originated in the late 1960s, FT got in the last decade new striking developments (especially in the non-commutative framework) that, however, just barely involved matrix rings. The goal of FacT-in-MaRs is to study the nonuniqueness phenomena of idempotent matrix factorization from the point of view of the FT, thus connecting in an original way two areas of ring theory remained unrelated so far. In the framework of the present action, we aim at advancing the state-of-the-art by: 1) defining a new concept of factorization into idempotent (non-irreducible) factors in the non-commutative semigroup of singular matrices over a domain R; 2) studying the nonuniqueness of this factorization in terms of arithmetical invariants (i.e., sets of legths/distances, elasticity); 3) exploiting the previous results to provide new approaches to the classical problems on factorizations in matrix rings. The above objectives will be achieved through an innovative combination of classical and recent techniques of the theory of factorization of matrices over integral domains and of the FT, respectively belonging to the background of the applicant and of the Supervisor.

Keywords: factorization of matrices over integral domains,idempotent matrices,factorization theory,non unique factorizations,non commutative semigroups,sets of lengths,sets of distances,elasticity
Retinal anatomy and gene expression: a window to the origin of snakes (Snake-eyes)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Individual Fellowships (IF)-Society and Enterprise panel
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Environment and Geosciences
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call: Individual Fellowships (H2020-MSCA-IF-2020, 2020)
Start date: 2022-03-01
End date: 2024-02-29
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 224933.76
EU funding (EUR): 224933.76
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Comparative analysis of the structure and functioning of sensory systems provides key information about natural history and evolution. During their origins from lizard ancestors, snakes lost many eye structures and genes, possibly as adaptation to life in low light conditions. Remarkably, living snakes have an extraordinary diversity of retinal and photoreceptor types, but they remain very understudied compared with other vertebrate groups. A lack of studies on the detailed anatomy of snake retinas and the patterns of expression of key visual genes, especially in ‘lower’ snakes, precludes accurate and precise interpretations of the origins, early evolution, diversity and function of snake visual systems. SNAKE-EYES will substantially populate this knowledge gap by generating the biggest dataset to date on the ultrastructure and spatial patterns of gene expression of snakes, using cutting-edge electron microscopy and immunohistochemistry imaging techniques to achieve three main research goals. 1) By sampling ‘lower’ snakes, SNAKE-EYES will use groundbreaking new information about the structure of the retina, ultrastructure of photoreceptors and expression of opsin genes, to newly infer the retina of the ancestral snake to test hypotheses of snake origins. 2) This action will generate new data on retinal structure and gene expression in fossorial lizards and snakes, to assess the extent of determinism in visual system evolution during multiple independent adaptations to fossoriality. 3) This project will provide, for the first time, data on the circuitry of snake retinas, by analyzing connectivity patterns of photoreceptors and bipolar cells in retinas with only rods and with rods and cones. In addition to advancing knowledge of vertebrate vision, this action will improve the fellow professional skills, and help her establishment as an innovative leader in evolutionary neuroscience, promoting important future collaborations among institutes in Brazil and Europe.

Keywords: vision,neuroscience,sensory biology,photoreceptors,retinal circuitry,opsins,immunohistochemistry,reptiles,evolution
Drug discovery screening using human neurons (HumanNeuronScreen)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Proof of concept grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Neuroscience and Disorders of the Nervous System
Panel description: Nervous system development, homeostasis and ageing, nervous system function and dysfunction, systems neuroscience and modelling, biological basis of cognitive processes and of behaviour, neurological and mental disorders
Countries involved: Netherlands
Call: Call for proposals for ERC Proof of Concept Grant (ERC-2020-PoC, 2020)
Start date: 2020-11-01
End date: 2022-04-30
Duration (months): 18.0
Total project cost (EUR): 150000.0
EU funding (EUR): 150000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Brain disorders present a staggering health-care burden, costing around 800 billion euros per year in the EU and affecting almost 180 million people. Currently, development of treatments for these disorders is very unsuccessful. Of all currently prescribed drugs, >30% target G-protein coupled receptors, that are typically activated by neuromodulators. Neuromodulators are signaling molecules secreted by most neurons, which regulate many processes in our brain and body. Dysregulation of neuromodulator secretion is firmly associated with many neuropsychiatric disorders, but no screening assay for neuromodulator secretion is currently available to test drug candidates. We have developed a human-based neuromodulator screening assay for preclinical testing of compounds for neuropsychiatric disorders. This assay, the HumanNeuronScreen, uses human neurons derived from somatic patient cells (e.g. skin), to maximally approach the situation in the patients’ CNS and thereby greatly enhancing target validation and lead optimization in preclinical research. It delivers in depth knowledge on the mechanism, potency and selectivity of drug candidates, supporting a higher success rate for clinical trials. Therefore, the value proposition of our product consists of a drastic reduction of costs in drug-development for pharmaceutical and biotech companies, and potentially impacts on 180 million patients in Europe. This proof-of-concept project aims to prove the commercial potential for the HumanNeuronScreen by measuring a reference library of compounds that establishes the resolution, reproducibility and dynamic range of the screen. An IP strategy will be developed to ensure a market position and business strategy will be created and validated. Together, this maximizes the value of the research conducted in the ERC Advanced grant DCV fusion.

Keywords: drug discovery,human neurons,neuromodulator assays
RFID-based feeder for giving dairy cows access to additional mineral supplements in a restricted and targeted way during the critical transition period of the lactation cycle (Pitstop PLUS)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Societal Challenges
Programme: Food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine and maritime and inland water research and the bioeconomy
Theme: Sustainable agriculture and forestry
Action type: SME instrument
Countries involved: Denmark
Call: Stimulating the innovation potential of SMEs for sustainable and competitive agriculture, forestry, agri-food and bio-based sectors (H2020-SMEINST-1-2016-2017, 2016)
Start date: 2017-02-01
End date: 2017-07-31
Duration (months): 6.0
Total project cost (EUR): 71429.0
EU funding (EUR): 50000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

MicroFeeder Pitstop PLUS is a market disruptive invention that responds to a huge need in EU and globally for a method for giving dairy cows in the critical transition period of the lactation extra minerals, trace elements, vitamins and other feed additives in a targeted and restricted way. Total Mixed Rations (TMR) has globally become the dominating feeding system, but cows in the critical transition period, starting 2-3 weeks before calving and lasting until around 100 days after calving, are in relation to their nutritive needs not able to eat sufficient amounts of their TMR, which is their sole source of minerals and vitamins. The result is low immune status and increase of incidences of diseases related with legs, cloves and digestion. Cows that do not recover, becomes so-called “loser cows” with a much elevated mortality rate. The described development is not only compromising ethical standards for food production, it also causes increasing economic losses related to suppressed production, fertility and health, which also is an animal welfare issue, furthermore with adverse environment, health and climate effects. The Pitstop PLUS feeder is equipped with electronic components, such as RFID based technology to identify the cows, dosing devices and advanced MESH communication. The feeder is managed through a web interface and designed for mounting on a wall, thus not taking up space in the stable. The project will stimulate the innovation capacity of enAgro and support its long-term strategy to consolidate its position in the market segment of mineral feeders via a wider variety of unique sales products, and in this way promote an organic company growth along with the building up of more specialised expertise through staff with diversified competences. Preliminary business plan estimates shows a healthy operating profit margin that grows to 28% in 2025, and a Return on Investments (RoI) of 7.7 for the observed period until 2025, reflecting a sound investment.

Keywords: dairy production,mineral feeder,critical transition period,rfid,mineral supplementation,internet of,things iot,animal welfare,group in group supplementation,tmr feeding
Nanoscale Design using Virtual Reality (NANOVR)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Physical and analytical chemical sciences
Panel description: Analytical chemistry, chemical theory, physical chemistry/chemical physics
Countries involved: Spain,United Kingdom
Call: ERC Consolidator Grant (ERC-2019-COG, 2019)
Start date: 2022-05-01
End date: 2027-04-30
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1988168.0
EU funding (EUR): 1988168.0
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

As molecular scientists have made progress in their ability to engineer and design the structure of mo-lecular systems at the nano-scale, a new fundamental challenge has emerged: namely, our ability to un-derstand and engineer molecular dynamics (MD) and flexibility. This limits our ability to carry out effi-cient molecular engineering in a range of important areas, including enzymatic catalysis, ligand-protein kinetics, and molecular signalling. In principle, MD simulations offer an excellent tool for furnishing microscopic insight into the fundamental dynamical and kinetic processes driving important molecular processes. However, the potential energy surfaces which characterize complex nano architectures have an extremely high dimensionality, making the exploration of structural dynamics a challenge; simula-tions tend to get trapped in metastable states, making it difficult to explore important transition path-ways. Drawing on the state-of-the-art in high performance computing [HPC] and virtual reality [VR], NanoVR will develop a new paradigm for undertaking nano-scale design, engineering, and analysis, through a synergistic combination of human design insight on the one hand and computational automation on the other. We will develop an intuitive open-source framework which enables molecular scientists to use VR-enabled interactive MD for guiding the automatic calculation of free energies along dynamical pathways in complex systems. We will highlight the power of this approach by applying it to under-stand enzyme-catalysed peptide macrocyclization, as well as the key protein-ligand interactions re-sponsible for emerging drug resistant strains of influenza. In so doing, we will advance fundamental new microscopic insight into molecular conformational dynamics, and grow a thriving user & develop-er community across both academia and industry committed to accelerating molecular design across important domains spanning biochemistry, materials chemistry, & catalysis.

Keywords: virtual reality,molecular design,catalysis,drug design
Population Dynamics under Global Climate Change (POPCLIMA)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: The Social World and Its Diversity
Panel description: Sociology, social psychology, social anthropology, education sciences, communication studies
Countries involved: Italy,Austria
Call: ERC CONSOLIDATOR GRANTS (ERC-2020-COG, 2020)
Start date: 2022-01-01
End date: 2026-12-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1569500.0
EU funding (EUR): 1569500.0
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

This study is the first to comprehensively address the impacts of climate change (CC) on population trends. Existing studies on population and CC focus either on the effects of population growth on CC or on identification of populations at risks to climatic hazards. There is virtually no literature on the mechanisms and the extent to which CC affects and will affect demographic outcomes. It is even not clear whether CC may increase or decrease fertility, mortality and migration. Being the first study to comprehensively and systematically address this issue, this project is very timely given that CC impacts have already been felt and are forecast to be much stronger in the future. The project has four main objectives: 1) to study the way (direction and extent) in which CC influences demographic outcomes; 2) to examine the differential impacts of CC on subgroups of populations; 3) to identify the mechanisms through which CC influences demographic outcomes; 4) to forecast future population dynamics under climate change. The project will analyse fertility, mortality and migration separately, using a variety of methodologies and datasets. Results from these analyses will then be used to inform the population projections under future CC scenarios. Our methodological approach is innovative. We will utilise and combine geo-referenced climate, demographic and socioeconomic data from different data sources (surveys and social media data) at the individual-, regional and country-level. Structural equation models are employed to identify the causal pathways and machine learning method is used to handle large-scale data. Results will be particularly important for: 1) helping the scientific community in building more realistic scenarios about populations trends under the rapid pace of CC; 2) informing the international debate over the social costs of CC; and 3) providing a set of estimations useful to design better social and environmental policies.

Keywords: climate change,differential vulnerability,fertility,geo referenced,machine learning,meta analysis,migration,mortality,population projections,scenarios,structural equation model
COgnitive Assisted agile manufacturing for a LAbor force supported by trustworthy Artificial Intelligence (COALA)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Industrial Leadership
Programme: Information and Communication Technologies
Action type: Research and Innovation actions
Countries involved: Germany,Italy,Italy,Italy,Italy,Greece,France,France,Netherlands,Netherlands
Call: Artificial intelligence for manufacturing (H2020-ICT-2020-1, 2020)
Start date: 2020-10-01
End date: 2023-09-30
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 5706726.25
EU funding (EUR): 5706726.25
Participants: 17
Project status: SIGNED

Humans are at the center of knowledge-intensive manufacturing processes. They must be skilled and flexible to meet the requirements of their work environment. The training of new workers in these processes is time consuming and costly for companies. Industries, such as the Italian textile sector suffer from the shortage of skilled workers caused, e.g. by the demographic change. A second challenge for the manufacturing sector is the continuous competition through high quality products. COALA will address both challenges through the innovative design and development of a voice-first Digital Intelligent Assistant for the manufacturing sector. The COALA solution will base on the privacy-focused open assistant Mycroft. It integrates prescriptive quality analytics, AI system to support on-the-job training of new workers, and a novel explanation engine - the WHY engine. COALA will address AI ethics during design, deployment, and use of the new solution. Critical components for the adoption of the solution are a new didactic concept to reach workers about opportunities, challenges, and risks in human-AI collaboration, and a concurrent change management process. Three use cases (textile, white goods, liquid packaging) will evaluate the results in common manufacturing processes with significant economic relevance. COALA will contribute its results to the European AI community, e.g. via the AI4EU platform, and it will involve Digital Innovation Hubs to replicate its demonstrators for Europes first trustworthy digital assistant for the manufacturing industry. We expect to reduce the failure cost in manufacturing by 30-60% with the prescriptive quality analytics feature and the assisted worker training. For the change over time we expect a reduction of 15% to 30% by shortening the worker training time.

Keywords: digital voice assistants,augmented analytics,ai ethics,explainable ai