Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Geometry of moduli spaces of bundles over curves (GEOMODULI)

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

The researcher C. Pauly plans to investigate several problems related to the geometry of moduli spaces of vector bundles over curves. The proposal deals with three different aspects: conformal blocks and the Hitchin/WZW connection, vector bundles in positive characteristic and the projective geometry of moduli spaces. Research will be undertaken at the Laboratoire J. A. Dieudonné of the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis in collaboration with experts in the different research areas. The research programme includes research visits of experts to the University of Nice, the organization of an international conference, of a school for young researchers, and a one-year post-doctoral position.

Keywords: moduli space,vector bundle,algebraic curve,topological quantum field theory,projective geometry
Computational roles of Feed-Forward Loops in neural circuits (FFL 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: 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

A major goal of Systems Biology is to understand the design principles underlying Biological Networks. Of particular interest are the computational roles of network motifs - circuits that appear in the network multiple times, significantly more than randomly expected. But why would such circuits evolve over and over again in the network? While extensively studied in transcriptional networks, the emergence of network motifs in neural networks is poorly understood. Here we propose to focus on one of the most abundant motifs - the Feed-Forward Loop (FFL) – and study its functional roles in neural networks. To do this, we will use C. elegans worms as the animal model system. With a compact neural network (302 neurons) and a fully-mapped wiring diagram, C. elegans offers a unique opportunity of studying functional dynamics in neural networks in an unprecedented single neuron resolution and in freely-behaving animals. We will use state-of-the-art optogenetic tools together with cutting-edge microfluidic devices to activate/inhibit and measure activity of individual neurons. This experimental system will be combined with modeling and theoretical approaches to decipher the computational roles of FFLs in neural circuits. Moreover, we will study functional dynamics of various FFLs in freely-behaving animals to decipher how circuitry computation eventually dictates behavioral outputs. Throughout the proposed project, we will use a combination of cutting-edge experimental techniques coupled with extensive computational analyses, modeling and theory. The aims of this interdisciplinary project together with the system-level approaches put it in the front line of research in the Systems Biology field.

Keywords: feed forward loop,network motifs,modeling funcitonal dynamics,c. elegans neural circuits,calcium imaging,optogenetics
Improving decision-making competence and associated quality of life across the lifespan (LIFESPAN DMC)

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: 2013-09-01
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

Across the life span, people face decisions about their health, finances and well-being. People of all ages therefore need good decision-making competence, referring to the ability to avoid decision biases and to obtain desired life outcomes. Reviews suggest that relatively little is known about how decision-making competence changes with age. However, well-documented aging-related declines in fluid cognitive abilities such as working memory start around age 20, threatening the quality of older adults’ decisions and associated quality of life. Because population age is increasing in the EU and the US, the European Commission sees maintaining older adults’ quality of life as a main policy challenge, and aims for Europe to be a leader in innovative strategies for improving quality of life across the lifespan. To address these pressing concerns, the 3 objectives of the planned research are: (1) Understanding the relationship between aging and decision-making competence across decision tasks, using validated measures of individual differences with EU samples; (2) Applying interdisciplinary insights from lifespan developmental theories to identify non-cognitive skills that facilitate better decision-making competence across the lifespan; (3) Designing and evaluating programs to build those skills that promote decision-making competence across the lifespan. The proposed work will build on new interdisciplinary insights from lifespan developmental theories and behavioral decision research, benefiting from the research program of Professor Bruine de Bruin (the applicant) who recently moved from the University of Leeds (UK) after 10 years at Carnegie Mellon University (US). Requested funds will help to move her research program to the EU, train affiliated junior EU colleagues, raise the team’s EU profile, and inform EU policy on aging. Findings will inform theories of decision making and aging, while promoting better decision making across the adult lifespan.

Keywords: adult decision-making competence,aging,cognitive decline,cognitive affective and experiential skills,lifespan development,behavioral decision making,decision skills training,healthy aging
Cell signaling pathways and epigenetic mechanisms controlling the differentiation of medullary thymic epithelial cells, key mediators in the induction of central self-tolerance (SIGNEPI4TOL)

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: 2015-02-01
End date: 2019-01-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Immunological tolerance is essential in preventing autoimmunity. The establishment of T-cell tolerance is induced in the thymus mainly by the deletion of hazardous autoreactive T cells. Medullary thymic epithelial cells (mTECs) are critical in this process because they express a diverse repertoire of peripheral tissue-restricted self-antigens (TRAs). Hazardous developing T-cells recognizing these TRAs with a high affinity are deleted. TRA expression is regulated by a transcription factor: the autoimmune regulator, Aire. I have demonstrated that antigen (Ag)-specific interactions with autoreactive CD4+ thymocytes play a privileged role in governing the differentiation of Aire+ mTECs. Although these cell interactions are of pivotal importance for T-cell tolerance induction, the underlying molecular mechanisms remain to be characterized. This proposal will define the affinity threshold required for driving CD4+ thymocytes mediated Aire+ mTEC differentiation. We will particularly determine whether mTEC differentiation is coupled to deletion of autoreactive CD4+ thymocytes or whether it corresponds to a dissociable event. We will investigate the epigenetic regulation and the gene expression program that drive the differentiation of Aire+ mTECs induced by CD4+ thymocyte interactions. For this, we will take advantage of genetically modified mice in which Ag presentation to CD4+ T cells is selectively abrogated in mTECs. A particular emphasis will be given to the molecular and epigenetic regulation of the Aire gene locus. This work will entail the use of cutting edge techniques in molecular biology (e.g. ChIP-seq or RNA-seq) and in cellular biology (e.g. fetal thymic organoculture) and will involve the use of unique transgenic mouse models. Overall, the combination of these tools will allow us to dissect the molecular mechanisms that drive proper mTEC differentiation, which is essential for ensuring central T-cell tolerance and hence for protecting from autoimmunity.

Keywords: immunological self-tolerance,autoimmune diseases,thymus,medullary thymic epithelial cells,autoimmune regulator,epigenetics,rna-seq,chip-seq transgenic mouse models
Understanding the interaction between timescales of single neurons, networks and the environment (MULTIPLE TIMESCALES)

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: 2014-04-01
End date: 2018-03-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Adaptation over multiple timescales is evident at every level of organization. Our actions are the result of the interactions between current external stimuli and a lifelong history. Likewise, the response of single neurons to a stimulus depends on a long stimulation history. This observation implies that a neural system is usually encountered in a different state each time it is stimulated or observed, and hence adaptation has profound implications both for decoding neural activity and for stimulating neural systems. Despite the ubiquity and importance of adaptation, it is still unknown how multiple temporal scales of adaptation interact across multiple levels of organization. Here, I aim to understand the interaction between timescales from three sources: those present in individual neurons, those emerging from neural networks, and those presented to a network through the environment. The key observation driving this research direction is that specific timescales are often present in all organizational levels, and therefore when moving from a neuron to a network we should not look for emergence of new timescales, but rather for a different way of using the same timescales. I am interested in exploring this “complexity from complexity” transformation by analyzing both the dynamics and the computational power of networks composed of elements with multiple timescales. Experimental data from my collaborators will be used to constrain and validate the models. By defining and exploring this new framework I hope to understand the interaction between timescales stemming from different sources and provide novel methods both to analyze neural data, and to stimulate neural systems.

Keywords: timescales,power law,adaptation,neural networks,models,dynamical systems,computation,theoretical neuroscience,computational neuroscience
Content Across Domains: From Words to Discourse (CONTENT)

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: 2018-05-03
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

My project proposes to combine the strengths of traditional linguistics (in particular formal semantics) and natural language processing in computer science in order to develop more sophisticated theories of semantic content at the word, sentence and discourse level. Methodologically, it aims at enlarging the set of theoretical tools both in formal semantics and in computational (distributive) semantics. It is hoped that by developing novel methods towards semantic content and by building bridges with the computer science community my research can open new theoretical perspectives as well as contribute to the development of further technical advances in the field of natural language processing. Such innovations could help various natural language tasks become much more efficient and thus might have a significant impact for a number of automatic language processing tasks as well as information retrieval.

Keywords: linguistics,semantics,pragmatics,discourse,computational semantics,presuppositions,lexical semantics
Econometric Modelling of Short Panels with Applications in Financial Econometrics (CSDPD_CP)

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: Türkiye
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-CIG, 2013)
Start date: 2013-08-01
End date: 2017-07-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

In recent years, there has been an increased availability of economic datasets that are characterised by a non-negligible amount of time-series information, as well as a large cross-section dimension. Unfortunately, in many cases, although the time-series dimension is not small anymore, it is not large enough for accurate estimation either. Examples of such datasets can be found in a variety of literatures: growth data, firm data (e.g. studies of insider trading activity), earnings studies (the popular Panel Study of Income Dynamics) and hedge fund returns, to name a few. Such panels are generally designated as short panels in the literature. Intuitively, the problem with short panels is a time-series finite-sample bias. This project’s main aim is to conduct a systematic theoretical and empirical research programme on modelling short panels in the presence of unknown and complex types of dependence across both time and cross-section. Inclusion of cross-section dependence is the central novelty of this project. This is motivated by my doctoral research where I showed that this type of dependence introduces new bias terms. The central theoretical objectives are to develop bias correction methods for (i) the Dynamic Autoregressive and Dynamic Probit/Logit models which are quite popular in applied research and (ii) the multivariate nonlinear and dynamic panel data models. The main empirical objectives are to a large extent concerned with univariate and multivariate volatility modelling using panels of financial data. As such, this project will contribute to the theoretical panel data and volatility modelling literatures, as well as the statistics literature, where the outlined small-sample bias has a long research tradition. In addition, as this project is concerned with modelling and understanding macro and financial panels, this project also has a significant potential to contribute to the key policy area “Connect to compete: building tomorrow’s networks today.”

Keywords: econometrics,financial econometrics,panel data econometrics,nonlinear and dynamic panel data models,volatility modelling,bias correction,cross-section dependence,hedge funds.
Circadian Developmental Requirements (CLOCK DEVELOPMENT)

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: 2014-04-01
End date: 2018-03-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Circadian clocks are internal daily time keeping mechanisms that are required for autonomous daily rhythms in physiology and behaviour of both fruit flies and humans. Our previous work has identified a developmental role in fruit flies for the transcription factor CLOCK/CYCLE (CLK/CYC), which represents a phylogenetic and functional orthologue of the key human circadian regulator CLOCK/BMAL1. By conditionally manipulating the developmental expression of the genes for CYC as well as the CLK/CYC inhibitor PERIOD (PER), we found that CLK/CYC acts in the clock neurons during metamorphosis to ensure that the adult neural clock circuit maintains the ability to generate circadian locomotor behaviour in constant darkness. The proposed research aims to elucidate this novel role for CLK/CYC by (1) more precisely identifying its spatiotemporal context, (2) determining the associated molecular and cellular phenotypes in adult clock neurons, and (3) systematically testing a number of candidate genes for their involvement in generating the observed phenotypes. Our experimental strategy takes advantage of a combination of fruit fly genetics, confocal immunofluorescence, and behavioural assays that are all well-established in our research group. Ultimately, elucidation of the signalling pathways connecting developmental CLK/CYC activity to overt circadian behaviour in adult flies will provide a compelling rationale for exploring analogous mechanisms associated with the homologous mammalian CLOCK/BMAL and NPAS2/BMAL complexes. Given the association of the Clock and Bmal genes with circadian control of a broad array of physiological functions including metabolism and sleep and the high degree of structural and functional conservation between the clocks of flies and human this study has strong relevance to human health and well-being.

Keywords: circadian clock,behaviour,drosophila melanogaster,clock,period,cycle,pigment dispersing factor,development,metamorphosis,transcription,lateral neurons,locomotor activity,rhythm
Dynamics and Structure of Randomly Evolving Locally Interacting Systems (DSRELIS) (DSRELIS)

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: 2013-10-01
End date: 2016-09-30
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 75000.0
EU funding (EUR): 75000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

In this proposal we aim at studying the dynamic properties of systems that evolve in time according to some local random mechanism. We focus on three types of systems: mobile point processes, allocation via sandpiles and random triangulations. For mobile point processes, we consider a Poisson point process of particles that move as independent continuous-time random walks on Z^2. This model has been studied as an abstraction to mobile wireless networks and moving populations. Our goal is to study the problem of whether a target can escape detection by the particles, how fast an aggregate can grow by gluing particles on its surface, and how the environments can affect the performance of mobile particles. For allocation via sandpiles, we consider the following model for allocation n particles on the vertices of a graph. Particles arrive one a time and, when a particle arrives, it first chooses a vertex u uniformly at random. Then the particle performs a local search starting from u until it reaches a vertex with a local minimum pile of particles, where the particle is finally placed. We study how balanced the pile of particles are and the behavior of this process on infinite graphs, especially in connection with sandpile models. For random triangulations, we consider the n x n square lattice and study the so-called flip dynamics, a Markov chain over triangulations of this point set that is of interest to researchers in combinatorics and computer graphics. In this dynamics, an edge is chosen uniformly at random and, if that edge lies inside a strictly convex quadrilateral, the edge is flipped to the opposite diagonal of the quadrilateral. Our goal is to understand the mixing time of this structure as n goes to infinity and to understand non-stationary properties of this system, such as the time it takes until all edges of the triangulation are smaller than some given value.

Keywords: probability,poisson point processes,random walks,dla,random walk on random environments,sandpiles,balls into bins,markov chain mixing time,triangulations
Scalability, Robustness and Fundamental Limits in Large Scale Heterogeneous Networks (SCALEHETNET)

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: Cyprus
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-CIG, 2013)
Start date: 2015-06-15
End date: 2019-06-14
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The proposed research will make a contribution towards the analysis and synthesis of large scale complex networks: fundamental theory will be developed and important applications will be addressed, by extending tools from control theory. Networks are present throughout the physical and biological world, but nowadays they also pervade our societies and everyday lives. Major challenges that will be addressed are: 1. The engineering of large scale heterogeneous networks that are guaranteed to be robust and scalable. 2. The reverse engineering of biological networks. A distinctive feature of the networks we would like to engineer, which falls outside more traditional domains in systems and control, is that of scalability, i.e. the ability to guarantee robust stability for an arbitrary interconnection by conditions on only local interactions. The methodologies that will be developed will have a significant impact in various applications where scalability is important, such as data network protocols, group coordination problems and power distribution networks, as they can lead to network designs with guaranteed robustness, thus avoiding conservative schemes with poor performance. The proposed project will also make a contribution towards the reverse engineering of biological networks at the molecular level. Life in the cell is dictated by chance; noise is ubiquitous with its sources ranging from fluctuating environments to intrinsic fluctuations due to the random births and deaths of molecules. The fact that a substantial part of the noise is intrinsic provides a major challenge in control theoretic methodologies. How can feedback be used to suppress these fluctuations, what are the associated tradeoffs and limitations, and how does nature manage to handle these so efficiently? These are questions that will be addressed by developing tools for analyzing known configurations, but more importantly, by deriving fundamental limitations that hold for arbitrary feedback.

Keywords: control engineering,control of networks,large scale systems,biological networks,complex systems