Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Energetic Particle Precipitation Interconnection with Climate (EPPIC)

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-IEF-2008, 2008)
Start date: 2009-09-01
End date: 2011-08-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 164269.69
EU funding (EUR): 164269.69
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

In this proposal we apply to bring Dr. Annika Seppälä to the British Antarctic Survey for a two year IEF, following the award of her PhD at the Finnish Meteorological Institute in October 2007. The aim of the work outlined in this proposal is to follow the effects of energetic particle precipitation into the upper atmosphere, flowing down through the stratosphere, until one can quantify the effect on tropospheric climate, and determine the signature of the forcing in observed climate variability. We do this as part of the ongoing study of non-anthropogenic forcing effects on the Earth’s climate system. The advantage of this proposal is in the match between the scientific objectives identified in this proposal, and the interdisciplinary research undertaken in the host organisation (BAS). Each topic area has an active, internationally renowned group at BAS that will be working closely with the fellow. The influence of solar forcing on the atmosphere is still poorly understood. This is in part due to the multiple mechanisms that link solar output to the Earth’s climate system. In the recent IPCC report most of the estimates of solar forcing were made using models driven by total solar irradiance. However, state-of-the-art research indicates that solar UV and energetic particle precipitation effects are significant in the stratosphere, and thus influencing the global circulation patterns of the Earth. In this project we will use the highest quality polar nighttime observations available of energetic particle forcing of the atmosphere as a result of the descent of nitric oxide into the stratosphere, to answer the questions about the influence of particle precipitation on global circulation patterns. We will bring to bear state-of-the-art models of ionospheric chemistry to interpret the satellite observations and integrate the results with highly regarded reanalysis data, chemistry-transport model, and coupled chemistry-climate model.

Keywords: natural sciences,ozone and atmospheric composition,climate variability (climate change)
Radar Imaging: Challenges And New Approaches (RICANA)

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: Spain
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-IOF-2008, 2008)
Start date: 2009-06-01
End date: 2011-11-30
Duration (months): 30.0
Total project cost (EUR): 270169.92
EU funding (EUR): 270169.92
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

RADAR imaging sounders for electromagnetic detection, such as Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), or Through Wall Radar (TWR), constitute privileged solutions for the remote detection of objects, structures or sediments, and even persons under or behind any surface. Their utility has been demonstrated in geophysical applications, explosive mine detection, construction, agriculture, homeland security, law enforcements, surveillance, etc. The improvement in RADAR imaging systems cannot be undertaken without solving previously known technological challenges. It becomes essential, in the first place, to determine the electromagnetic behaviour for the usual materials disposed between the sounder and the objectives targets, based on its spectral signature, in order to correctly design a reliable detection system. Once determined this behaviour, a research field is opened for the optimization of these systems and their different components and subsystems. The following step is the design of transmitting and receiving antennas adapted to the characteristics of the elements to detect. Also there is place for the research of other aspects of the sounding, like the optimization of the transmitted signal, alternative receiver schemes, and the processing algorithm of the received signal. In this later aspect, there exists the possibility of deepening in solutions based on radioelectric images formation techniques. Also, the real-time condition, desirable for systems working in actual situations, drive us to look for implementation options based on DSP and/or FPGA based systems. ASIC integration, and VLSI design cannot be forgotten as technological watch and monitoring objective. A radar imaging prototype will be built oriented to GPR and TWR applications, and several field trials will be conducted to test its performance in actual and controlled environments. All of these questions are targets to develop in the present project.

Keywords: technological sciences,radio engineering,radar,imaging,vlsi
Community Dynamics and Phenotypic Changes of Limnic Bacteria During Experimental Manipulation of Bottom-up and Top-down Factors (COMPLEX)

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: Switzerland
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-IEF-2008, 2008)
Start date: 2009-07-01
End date: 2010-10-31
Duration (months): 16.0
Total project cost (EUR): 143006.46
EU funding (EUR): 143006.46
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Bacteria in freshwaters are key players in the degradation of organic carbon. Their important functional role is related to the specific growth features of different genotypes within mixed assemblages. Limitation by substrates and nutrients (bottom-up factors) and high predation by bacterivorous protists (top-down factors) together shape the composition of microbial assemblages. Bacterial species have developed strategies that are either aimed at maximizing their competitive abilities for bottom-up limitations or at resisting protistan top-down control. Both specializations conceivably also represent trade-offs, either of metabolic versatility or of growth efficiency. We propose studying the effects of different types of growth limitations (carbon and phosphorus) on experimental assemblages of freshwater bacteria in the presence and absence of predation. Particular focus will be put on the relationship between the diversity and the metabolic function of the bacterial communities. Representatives of key populations will be isolated and tested for physiological versatility, growth efficiency and sensitivity to chemical cues (kairomons) by the predator. The growth of isolates and their response to predation will also be determined at close to natural conditions. The proposed work will provide novel insight into the specific metabolic differences of freshwater bacteria that are most successful at either top-down or bottom-up selection. It will also produce new physiologically well characterized model strains to study chemical interactions between bacteria and predators. The project will combine the research proficiency of the applicant with the ample facilities and the expertise available at the host institution. The candidate will benefit from a research environment that offers possibilities for fruitful collaborations. Moreover, it will be advantageous for his envisaged career to gain teaching experience in a university environment.

Keywords: microbial ecology,freshwater,bacteria,protists,predation,competition,substrate limitation,continuous cultivation,microbial diversity,grazing-resistance,phenotypes
Culture and Human Rights in Colombia: Negotiating Indigenous Law (CULTURE AND RIGHTS)

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-IEF-2008, 2008)
Start date: 2009-07-01
End date: 2011-06-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 163702.68
EU funding (EUR): 163702.68
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The research proposed over 24 months seeks to extend the ‘culture and rights’ debate in Social Anthropology through an ethnographic examination of how indigenous identity and self-image in Colombia is becoming politicised. The candidate intends to use the Fellowship significantly to advance her career by moving to a leading independent position in the field of socio-legal studies. The candidate’s foremost training activity under a dual mentorship comprises a programme of training-through-research on a personalized socio-legal project on Colombia. Through six months of ethnographic fieldwork at an indigenous law school, this research project reframes concepts of culture and rights by investigating indigenous leaders’ projection of indigenous culture as a basis for legal entitlements, the project’s suggestion is that in practice the terms ‘culture’ and ‘rights’ need not be inevitably opposed. The fellowship would provide the applicant with the opportunity to manage and implement an innovative interdisciplinary research project, developing skills and competencies through the facilities offered by the Department and the University of Cambridge.

Keywords: social anthropology,human rights
Mercury biogeochemistry in the high Arctic (MERCTIC)

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: Denmark
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-IIF-2008, 2008)
Start date: 2010-01-11
End date: 2011-01-10
Duration (months): 12.0
Total project cost (EUR): 142594.59
EU funding (EUR): 142594.59
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The contamination of the Arctic with mercury is of increasing concern and yet our knowledge of mercury biogeochemistry in this environment is rudimentary. We know that mercury reaches the Arctic from sources in lower latitudes by long distance atmospheric transport of elemental mercury and that it is deposited as inorganic mercury following oxidation in the atmosphere, most notably during atmospheric mercury depletion events. We also know that the Arctic food chain is contaminated with the neurotoxic substance methylmercury and that people whose subsistence depends on indigenous sources of food have elevated body burdens of mercury. Little is known on how the mercury that reaches the Arctic by atmospheric deposition of inorganic mercury accumulates in the food chain as methylmercury. The bioaccumulation of methylmercury directly depends on mercury biogeochemistry whose understanding has resulted in improved environmental management in many temperate ecosystems. Information that will lead to models of mercury biogeochemistry in polar-regions is being collected mostly focusing on the atmosphere-surface-deposition-evasion part of the cycle. Microbial redox transformations as well as conversions between methylated and inorganic forms of mercury have a significant role in the mercury cycle and presence and activities of microorganisms in polar-regions have been documented. We therefore propose to examine three modes of microbial interactions with mercury that are known to impact mercury geochemistry. These are: 1. Mercury redox transformations in various environmental matrices 2. Mercury methylation in snowpack where some of the atmospherically deposited mercury accumulates, in coastal lagoons, and in coastal marine sediments 3. The interaction of microbes in sea ice with the toxic concentrations of mercury in brine and their potential to reduce inorganic to elemental mercury as a detoxification mechanism

Keywords: biological sciences,environmental biology,ecotoxicology,anthropogenic impact on ecosystems,remediation (environmental risks)
Redefining and repositioning public service broadcasting in the digital and multiplatform media scenario: agents and strategies – An international comparison within the European Union. (PSB-DIGITAL)

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-IEF-2008, 2008)
Start date: 2010-02-01
End date: 2012-01-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 162130.93
EU funding (EUR): 162130.93
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The digital and multiplatform scenario implies important changes in the structure, the business models and the reception patterns of the media. It sets a clear inflection point concerning the position and the role of Public Service Broadcasting. Divergent opinions coexist: On the one hand, free market and competition are considered sufficient to guarantee those values and functions that once legitimized PSB. On the other hand, the new possibilities resulting from digitalisation and the convergence of distribution platforms are seen as ways to improve the performance of public operators. This research aims to investigate the impact of those facts on PSB and what strategies are implemented in order to redefine its remit and to reposition its operators in the new media context. First, the current transformations affecting the media are analysed. New tendencies and operational logics will be identified. As a result, a theoretical model concerning the opportunities and challenges for PSB in the digital scenario will be designed and contrasted with the selected national cases. Next, the research is focused on the PSB adaptation strategies. The articulation of their elements –network of agents, procedures and goals– varies depending on the particularities of each national media market, on the political tradition and on the perception of the new communication context. Considering this diversity within the EU, an international comparison of these strategies will be carried out. The analysed countries are Germany, Spain and Poland. The final objective of this project is double. First, it has a strong theoretical ambition, wanting to contribute to the development of the PSB studies. Secondly, it aims to produce valuable pragmatic knowledge by means of detecting best practices among the adaptation strategies implemented in Europe and drawing a list of recommendations for the different players involved in the redefinition and repositioning of PSB.

Keywords: communication sciences,media studies,television studies,public service broadcasting,digitalisation,multiplatform,comparative analysis,european union,germany,spain,poland
Cooperative Communications with Confidential Messages (CCCM)

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: Switzerland
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-IOF-2008, 2008)
Start date: 2009-12-01
End date: 2013-05-31
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 251049.26
EU funding (EUR): 251049.26
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

In comparison to the conventional wireless communication systems, the future ones will be decentralized, ad-hoc in nature allowing different mobile terminals to join and leave. While designing such systems an important aspect is the confidentiality of the data exchanged among trusted network nodes. Recent results show that significant performance improvements could be achieved by allowing cooperation among the network nodes. The possibility to collaborate in a wireless environment makes the whole system vulnerable and susceptible to attacks. The primary topic of the proposed research is to explore the information theoretic limits in wireless networks where nodes can cooperate while exchanging confidential messages. In order to protect the transmitted information, classical systems exchange encryption keys over separate channels. In the wireless ad-hoc scenario this approach will be extremely challenging. Information theory offers tools to design codes that maximize the useful rate while minimizing the "leak" rate of confidential information to unwanted users. The advantage is that everything could be done through the same channel, i.e. there is no need of separate channels to exchange keys. The project will also focus on exploring the possibility of the combined (hybrid) scenario where the current cellular infrastructure is used such that mobile users have the possibility to choose between peer-to-peer transmission and transmission via a base station or an access point. The design of such systems will improve the performances of the current systems and will open new possibilities for various applications.

Keywords: terrestrial mobile technology,radio engineering,signal processing,cooperative communications,relay channels,ad-hoc networks,information theory,coding,capacity region
An Alternative Model of Learning: Implications of Learning Sciences Research for the Creation of Effective Technology-Enhanced Learning Environments (RETHINK LEARNING)

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: Switzerland
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-IOF-2008, 2008)
Start date: 2009-08-01
End date: 2013-05-31
Duration (months): 46.0
Total project cost (EUR): 238095.57
EU funding (EUR): 238095.57
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The European Commission stresses the importance of innovation, research, high-quality education and lifelong learning as Europe develops as a knowledge-based society and economy. In order to enhance the scientific knowledge on innovative pedagogies and accelerate new forms of learning and teaching, more interdisciplinary learning sciences research is required, to inspire a faster and more progressive change with regard to Europe’s education and training systems. Consequently, the overall goal of this research project is to gain a refined knowledge on how students come to understand and how faculty can support learning with understanding, creating effective technology-enhanced learning environments. The objectives tackled are as follows: (1) In order to refine the scientific knowledge on how students come to understand, cognition will be studied in its physical, social and cultural context, conducting an interdisciplinary literature review and outlining a sensitizing framework; (2) Explorative case study research on how expert instructors in the field of education design effective technology-enhanced learning environments that engage students in deep learning will be conducted. In this respect, three selected courses at Harvard Graduate School of Education will be investigated to inform the theory-building process of the study; (3) Characteristics of effective technology-enhanced learning environments will be derived from learning sciences research (see 1 and 2) to guide the development of a new learning model. In addition, a questionnaire will be designed to survey the outlined characteristics of the developed model against a broader audience of students at Harvard Graduate School of Education and further develop and enhance the generalizability of the theory. (4) Implications for curriculum development as well as learning and teaching in higher education will be drawn from the American context to transfer and implement the insights gained to the European context.

Keywords: humanities,social sciences,learning studies,permanent education,educational guidance,educational sociology,cognitive science,educational psychology,technological education,teaching science
Novel approaches based on bionanoscience to manipulate, study, visualize and dissociate the nucleocapsid complex of HIV (NUCARCHIV)

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: Spain
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-IEF-2008, 2008)
Start date: 2009-06-01
End date: 2011-05-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 152968.04
EU funding (EUR): 152968.04
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The general framework of the project NUCARCHIV is to use the recent development of nano-biotechnology to manipulate and image sophisticated in vitro reconstituted protein-nucleic acids complexes. Our goal is to bring several important advances in our understanding of the inner nucleoprotein structure (the nucleocapsid) of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the causative agent of AIDS. The nucleocapsid complex plays essential roles during HIV assembly and early infection, and its modifications severely impede viral replication. The highly conserved nucleocapsid protein p7NC, the main actor of this complex, is considered as a prime target for developing new compounds with antiviral properties. Studies of nucleocapsid self-assembly, architecture and behavior in the host&apos;s cytoplasm are essential prerequisites for a complete description of HIV infection, and for the development of new anti-AIDS chemotherapies or vaccine. We will study by dynamic molecular imaging using atomic force microscopy single nucleoprotein complexes assembled from their purified partners (protein and nucleic acids templates). We will probe how these complexes are topologically modulated by the presence of viral enzymatic activities. Our goal is to provide a movie in real time showing the molecular dynamics of these complexes from virus maturation up to the late steps of early infection. We also propose to study the effect of a new molecule specifically designed to irreversibly inhibit HIV nucleocasid, with a potent application in AIDS prevention as component of next-generation of microbicids.

Keywords: virology,hiv,nucleocapsid,dna-protein complexes,structural biology,molecular biophysics,pharmacology,nanobiotechnology,biochemistry
Preparation of ionic liquid microcapsule membranes loaded and their application in NMVOCs removal (ILMC)

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: Italy
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-IIF-2008, 2008)
Start date: 2010-07-13
End date: 2012-07-12
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 165342.47
EU funding (EUR): 165342.47
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The intention of our proposal is to demonstrate the feasibility of ionic liquid encapsulated microcapsules as alternatives to conventional separation techniques. Suitable Ionic liquid will be chosen by conventional extraction procedures i.e. solvent extraction. Furthermore, the efficiency (selectivity, perability) and the life of the novel membrane will be compared with the traditional SLM for NMVOCs removal. The novel ionic liquid membrane capsules will be prepared integrating the membrane technology (membrane emulsification) with the phase inversion technique. This will allow to taylor both the morphology of the prepared shell capsules and the size of the made capsules. Two different types of procedures in loading the IL-MC within the membrane will be also carried out and compared: a) the IL-MC can be directly mixed with a polymer solution (such as chitosan or PVA) employed for making the membrane (flat or hollowfiber) and then cast. Appropriate solvents for the procedure will be selected by various preliminary investigations. (The membrane polymer solution has been chosen in the way that the ionic liquid capsules will be not dissolved by the polymer solvent). b) directly impregnation of the IL-MC in the supported liquid membrane.

Keywords: materials engineering,materials technology