Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Structural and electronic properties of nanoscale metallic contacts fabricated by thermally assisted electromigration (NANOCONTACTS)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Condensed matter physics
Countries involved: Germany
Call:  (ERC-2009-StG, 2009)
Start date: 2010-01-01
End date: 2015-12-31
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1513000.0
EU funding (EUR): 1513000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The key aim of the project is to correlate the electronic transport properties of nanoscale metallic contacts with their structure. The electronic transport properties through a metallic contact of atomic dimensions are governed by the atomic structure and by the chemical properties of the contact as well as by the wave nature of electrons. This leads to plateaus of the conductance measured as a function of contact size that do not necessarily correspond to integer multiples of the conductance quantum. I will investigate whether and how atomic as well as electronic shell effects influence the atomic structure of nanoscale metallic contacts. We will measure both electronic transport properties and structural properties concurrently and determine their mutual relation on each individual contact. The contacts will be fabricated by Joule heating a nanowire until thermally assisted electromigration sets in and thins the nanowire to form a contact. The structural properties of these nanocontacts will be studied using scanning force microscopy and scanning tunneling microscopy with atomic resolution in ultrahigh-vacuum. This approach will allow us to use clean superconducting contacts and to exploit superconductivity in order to study the electronic transport properties of the contacts. The electronic transport properties will be studied employing multiple Andreev reflections to determine the number and transmission coefficient of electronic conduction channels. Eventually, a deeper understanding of the relation between structure and electronic transport properties will be obtained which is a prerequisite to tailor the electronic transport properties of nanoscale metallic contacts.

Keywords: scanning force microscopy,scanning tunneling microscopy
Large Scale Privacy-Preserving Technology in the Digital World - Infrastructure and Applications (LAST)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Computer science and informatics
Countries involved: Israel
Call:  (ERC-2009-StG, 2009)
Start date: 2009-10-01
End date: 2014-09-30
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1921315.8
EU funding (EUR): 1921315.8
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Data mining provides large benefits to the commercial, government and homeland security sectors, but the aggregation and storage of huge amounts of data about citizens inevitably leads to erosion of privacy. To achieve the benefits that data mining has to offer, while at the same time enhancing privacy, we need technological solutions that simultaneously enable data mining while preserving privacy. The current state of the art has focused on providing privacy-preserving solutions for very specific problems, and has thus taken a local perspective. Although this is an important first step in the development of privacy-preserving solutions, it is time for a global perspective on the problem that aims for providing full integrated solutions. Our goal in this research is to study privacy and develop comprehensive solutions for enhancing it in the digital era. Our proposed research project includes foundational research on privacy, an infrastructure level for achieving anonymity over the Internet, key cryptographic tools for constructing privacy-preserving protocols, and development of large-scale applications that are built on top of all of the above. The novelty of our research is in our focus on fundamental issues towards comprehensive solutions that are aimed for large-scale data sources. The project s outcome will allow migration from local solutions for specific problems that are suited for small to medium scale data sources to comprehensive privacy-preserving database and data mining solutions for large scale data warehouses. Achieving this great challenge carries immense scientific, technological and societal rewards.

Keywords: cryptography,privacy
Bio-inspired Design of Catalysts for Selective Oxidations of C-H and C=C Bonds (BIDECASEOX)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Materials and Synthesis
Countries involved: Spain
Call:  (ERC-2009-StG, 2009)
Start date: 2009-11-01
End date: 2015-10-31
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1299998.0
EU funding (EUR): 1299998.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The selective functionalization of C-H and C=C bonds remains a formidable unsolved problem, owing to their inert nature. Novel alkane and alkene oxidation reactions exhibiting good and/or unprecedented selectivities will have a big impact on bulk and fine chemistry by opening novel methodologies that will allow removal of protection-deprotection sequences, thus streamlining synthetic strategies. These goals are targeted in this project via design of iron and manganese catalysts inspired by structural elements of the active site of non-heme enzymes of the Rieske Dioxygenase family. Selectivity is pursued via rational design of catalysts that will exploit substrate recognition-exclusion phenomena, and control over proton and electron affinity of the active species. Moreover, these catalysts will employ H2O2 as oxidant, and will operate under mild conditions (pressure and temperature). The fundamental mechanistic aspects of the catalytic reactions, and the species implicated in C-H and C=C oxidation events will also be studied with the aim of building on the necessary knowledge to design future generations of catalysts, and provide models to understand the chemistry taking place in non-heme iron and manganese-dependent oxygenases.

Keywords: oxidation catalysis,bioinspired systems,c-h bond oxidations,c=c bond oxidations,green chemistry
Assembly of Colloidal Nanocrystals into Unconventional Types of Nanocomposite Architectures with Advanced Properties (NANO-ARCH)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Materials and Synthesis
Countries involved: Italy
Call:  (ERC-2009-StG, 2009)
Start date: 2009-11-01
End date: 2013-10-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1299960.0
EU funding (EUR): 1299960.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Nanoscience promises innovative solutions in a large variety of sectors, ranging from cost-effective optoelectronic devices to energy generation, and to highly performing materials and interfaces. Realizing this promise will rely heavily on a bottom-up approach. This can only succeed if self assembly of advanced nanoscale building blocks will be developed intensively, to enable creation of useful macroscopic architectures. The unconventional assembly of nanocrystals towards functional materials is the area where this proposal aims at providing a key contribution. This will be achieved via ground-breaking advances in the fabrication of shape controlled nanocrystals, via solution approaches, in their organization following radically new concepts and in the study of their assembly related properties. The bottom line here is to tune the assembly process of nanocrystals so as to generate a desired functionality or a combination of functionalities. This would represent a dramatic leap forward from the trial-and-error approach to controlling the various properties that is currently prevalent in many of the communities working in the field of nanocrystals. The primary motivation of this proposal is therefore to correlate strongly the structural properties with the behaviour of nanostructured assemblies. This is clearly a cutting edge research program, at the frontier of chemistry, physics, materials science and engineering, and whose successful outcome will be of tremendous benefit in several fields.

Keywords: nanocrystals,self-assembly,functional materials
Gromov-Witten Theory: Mirror Symmetry, Modular Forms, and Integrable Systems (GWT)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Mathematical foundations
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (ERC-2009-StG, 2009)
Start date: 2009-11-01
End date: 2015-10-31
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 620000.0
EU funding (EUR): 620000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The Gromov-Witten invariants of a space X record the number of curves in X of a given genus and degree which meet a given collection of cycles in X. They have important applications in algebraic geometry, symplectic geometry, and theoretical physics. The program proposed here will allow us to compute Gromov-Witten invariants, and particularly higher-genus Gromov-Witten invariants, for a very broad class of spaces. Recent progress, partly due to the Principal Investigator, has led to a greatly-improved mathematical understanding of the string-theoretic duality known as Mirror Symmetry. This allows us to compute genus-zero Gromov-Witten invariants (those where the curves involved are spheres) for a wide range of target spaces. But at the moment there are very few effective tools for computing higher-genus Gromov-Witten invariants (those where the curves involved are tori, or n-holed tori for n&gt;1). We will solve this problem by extending mathematical Mirror Symmetry to cover this case. In doing so we will draw on and make rigorous recent insights from topological string theory. These insights have revealed close and surprising connections between Gromov-Witten theory, modular forms, and the theory of integrable systems.

Keywords: algebraic geometry,symplectic geometry,topological string theory,mirror symmetry
Spiking neural models of auditory perception (SPIKEHEAR)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Computer science and informatics
Countries involved: France
Call:  (ERC-2009-StG, 2009)
Start date: 2009-10-01
End date: 2014-09-30
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1244640.0
EU funding (EUR): 1244640.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

In classical connectionism, the information is conveyed by the firing rate of neurons. Spiking neuron models offer an additional dimension to the rate: synchrony. Synchronous spike trains are more effective than uncorrelated ones in driving the responses of target neurons. Because neurons can encode their inputs in a sequence of precisely timed spikes, input similarity translates into synchronous spiking, which can be easily detected by afferent neurons. The dual properties of synchronization and coincidence detection lead to a new computing paradigm, where neurons perform a similarity operation instead of a summation. Because synaptic plasticity favor correlated neuron groups, synchrony-based computation should play an important role in developed neural circuits. The presence of neural correlations has been demonstrated in early sensory systems, but their computational role is still unclear. In auditory perception, the fine temporal structure of sounds is thought to play an important role, in particular for pitch perception and spatial localization of sounds. It has long been proposed that the auditory system exploits the structure of neural correlations to infer information about those properties, but it is still unclear how this computation is physiologically implemented. In this project, I propose to investigate synchrony-based computation and learning in the auditory system, using computational neural modeling. The expected impact of the project is 1) the development of spike-based neural network theory, 2) a better understanding of the role of neural synchronization in auditory perception, 3) industrial applications (music transcription, auditory scene analysis) and medical applications (stimulation procedures for cochlear implants) with neural simulation technology.

Keywords: computational neuroscience,neuron models,neural networks,audition,pitch perception,spatial hearing,simulation
Predictive models and simulations in nano- and biomolecular mechanics: a multiscale approach (PREDMODSIM)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Products and process engineering
Countries involved: Spain
Call:  (ERC-2009-StG, 2009)
Start date: 2009-10-01
End date: 2014-09-30
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1462198.0
EU funding (EUR): 1462198.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The predictive ability of current simulations of interesting systems in nano- and biomolecular mechanics is questionable due to (1) uncertainties in material behavior of continuum models, (2) severe limitations of atomistic simulations in the computationally accessible length and time scales in relation with the scales of scientific and technological interest, and (3) the limited understanding gained from terabytes of data produced in supercomputing platforms. These difficulties seriously undermine the credibility of computer simulations, as well as their real impact in scientific and technological endeavors. Examples include fundamental challenges in materials science (structure-property relations), molecular biology (sequence-structure-function of proteins), or product engineering (virtual testing for analysis, optimization, control). This proposal addresses three important topics in nano- and biomolecular mechanics, whose full understanding and technological exploitation require predictive models and simulations: (1) Mechanics of carbon nanotubes at engineering scales, (2) Mechanics of fluid membranes in eukaryotic cells and bio-inspired technologies and (3) Local-to-global conformational space exploration and free energy calculations for biomolecules. We follow a multiscale approach, which seeks to incorporate the net effect of the small-scale phenomena described by fundamental models of physics into the coarser (computable) scales at which the system or device operates. In addition to specific impact in these applications, the proposed research is expected to exemplify the potential of multiscale approaches towards predictive and quantitative science and technology, as well as contribute to the credibility and utility of large investments in supercomputing.

Keywords: multiscale modeling and simulation,continuum mechanics,molecular dynamics,carbon nanotubes,fluid membranes,biomolecules
Physics Of Magma Propagation and Emplacement: a multi-methodological Investigation (CCMP)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Earth system science
Countries involved: Germany,Germany
Call:  (ERC-2009-StG, 2009)
Start date: 2010-07-01
End date: 2015-06-30
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1507679.15
EU funding (EUR): 1507679.15
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

Dikes and sills are large sheet-like intrusions transporting and storing magma in the Earth’s crust. When propagating, they generate seismicity and deformation and may lead to volcanic eruption. The physics of magma-filled structures is similar to that of any fluid-filled reservoir, such as oil fields and CO2 reservoirs created by sequestration. This project aims to address old and new unresolved challenging questions related to dike propagation, sill emplacement and in general to the dynamics of fluid and gas-filled reservoirs. I propose to focus on crustal deformation, induced seismicity and external stress fields to study the signals dikes and sills produce, how they grow and why they reactivate after years of non-detected activity. I will combine experimental, numerical and analytical techniques, in close cooperation with volcano observatories providing us with the data necessary to validate our models. In the lab, I will simulate magma propagation injecting fluid into solidified gelatin. I will also contribute to a project, currently under evaluation, on the monitoring of a CO2 sequestration site. At the same time, I will address theoretical aspects, extending static models to dynamic cases and eventually developing a comprehensive picture of the multi faceted interaction between external stress field, magma and rock properties, crustal deformation and seismicity. I also plan, besides presenting my team’s work in the major national and international geophysical conferences, to produce, with technical support from the media services of DKRZ (Deutsches Klimarechenzentrum), an audiovisual teaching DVD illustrating scientific advances and unresolved issues in magma dynamics, in the prediction of eruptive activity and in the physics of reservoirs.

Keywords: magma propagation,volcanic eruption,crustal deformation,analogue experiments,co2 sequestration
Electronic Structure of Chemical, Biochemical, and Biophysical Systems: Multiscale Approach with Electron Correlation (MULTISCALECHEMBIO)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Physical and Analytical Chemical sciences
Countries involved: Italy,Italy
Call:  (ERC-2009-StG, 2009)
Start date: 2009-10-01
End date: 2015-09-30
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1200000.0
EU funding (EUR): 1200000.0
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

The currently available computational methods have often serious limitations to treat systems where electron correlation plays and important role. Many issues concerning the electronic structure of radicals, photoreceptors near-half-filled transition metals (Cr,Mo,Fe,Ni) are of paramount relevance in basic and applied research in Chemistry and Biochemistry, but still out of the capabilities of standard and conventional tools such as Density Functional Theory. On the other hand, post Hartree-Fock methods computationally more expensive and their application is limited to few atoms. The objective of the present proposal is to overcome these limitations and to develop and apply a multiscale, innovative and unconventional computer simulation technique to unravel the electronic properties of strongly correlated chemical and biochemical systems. The methodology is based on a combined approach between Quantum Monte Carlo (QMC), DFT and Molecular Mechanics. The proposed approach has a faster scaling of the calculation time with the system size N with respect others standard quantum chemistry methods of equivalent level (~ N4 vs ~ N7). es to address challenging open problems in the chemistry and biochemistry of radical compounds, photoreceptors, and transition metal catalysis and enzymatic activity. Application to photoreceptors include the study of the spectral properties of rhodopsin, the integral membrane protein responsible of the light detection in the retina. Applications on transition metal molecules will shed the light on the catalytic strategies of iron-based enzymes and their corresponding biomimetic compounds.

Keywords: electronic structure,ab initio molecular dynamics,quantum monte carlo,biomimetics,transition metal chemistry
Practical design and analysis of certifiably secure protocols - theory and tools for end-to-end security (END2ENDSECURITY)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Computer science and informatics
Countries involved: Germany
Call:  (ERC-2009-StG, 2009)
Start date: 2010-02-01
End date: 2013-10-31
Duration (months): 45.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1074806.9
EU funding (EUR): 1074806.9
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

State-of-the-art technologies struggle to keep pace with possible security vulnerabilities. The lack of a consistent methodology and tools for analyzing security protocols throughout the various stages of their design hinders the detection and prevention of vulnerabilities and comprehensive protocol analysis. Moreover, state-of-the-art verification tools typically only address particular narrow aspects of a protocol&apos;s security and require expert knowledge; hence they do not help protocol designers. The challenge is to guarantee end-to-end security - from high-level specifications of the desired security requirements, to a specification of a security protocol that relies on innovative cryptographic primitives, to a secure, executable program. This proposal addresses key steps of this challenge: our goal is to develop a general methodology for automatically devising security protocols and programs based on high-level specifications of selected security requirements and protocol tasks. This includes developing a user-friendly interface for specifying the protocol&apos;s intended behavior and high-level security requirements, devising suitable abstract protocols, selecting suitable cryptographic instantiations, and generating a secure, streamlined implementation. This methodology will also include novel verification techniques that complement all design phases along with a theory which propagates verification results from phase to phase with the ultimate goal of certified end-to-end security. This includes developing type systems for analyzing abstract protocols, a general framework for conducting cryptographic proofs, and techniques for reasoning about executable code. The tools we develop should be automated and usable by non-experts.

Keywords: computer security
Science in Europe 2 (SIE2)

Framework: FP7 — Cooperation
Programme: Health
Destination: Health
Action type: Coordination and support actions
Countries involved: Switzerland
Call:  (FP7-Adhoc-2007-13, 2007)
Start date: 2008-07-01
End date: 2013-06-30
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1379230.0
EU funding (EUR): 1000000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Through the 2007 Work Programme, which specifically included measures to support the "promotion of science by audiovisual means via European coproductions and the circulation of science programmes", the EBU and the DG Research have started a concrete collaboration which is already showing its first tangible results. Through that framework agreement a total of 12 hours of scientific TV Programmes have been cofinanced and are already being shown on European and extra-European TV screens. Building on that ongoing cooperation, the project 'Science in Europe 2' therefore aims to enhance the knowledge and the awareness of scientific research in Europe in some key fields by improving the presence of science on European screens and to contribute to a better understanding between scientists, science communicators and the public, with a particular attention given to younger audience.

Keywords: euroepan broadcasting union,alzheimer,health protection,brain research,astrophysics,flocking behaviour,swarm dynamics,artificial intelligence.