Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Brain networks for processing social signals of emotions: early development and the emergence of individual differences (EARLYDEV)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: The Human Mind and its complexity
Countries involved: Finland
Call:  (ERC-2011-StG_20101124, 2011)
Start date: 2012-02-01
End date: 2017-01-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1397351.0
EU funding (EUR): 1397351.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Recent research has shown that genetic variations in central serotonin function are associated with biases in emotional information processing (heightened attention to signals of negative emotion) and that these biases contribute significantly to vulnerability to affective disorders. Here, we propose to examine a novel hypothesis that the biases in attention to emotional cues are ontogenetically primary, arise very early in development, and modulate an individual’s interaction with the environment during development. The four specific aims of the project are to 1) test the hypothesis that developmental processes resulting in increased functional connectivity of visual and emotion/attention-related neural systems (i.e., increased phase-synchrony of oscillatory activity) from 5 to 7 months of age are associated with the emergence of an overt attentional bias towards affectively salient facial expressions at 7 months of age, 2) use eye-tracking to ascertain that the attentional bias in 7-month-old infants reflects sensitivity to the emotional signal value of facial expressions instead of correlated non-emotional features, 3) test the hypothesis that increased serotonergic tone early in life (through genetic polymorphisms or exposure to serotonin enhancing drugs) is associated with reduced control of attention to affectively salient facial expressions and reduced temperamental emotion-regulation at 7, 24 and 48 months of age, and 4) examine the plasticity of the attentional bias towards emotional facial expressions in infancy, particularly whether the bias can be overridden by using positive reinforcers. The proposed studies will be the first to explicate the neural bases and nature of early-emerging cognitive deficits and biases that pose a risk for emotional dysfunction. As such, the results will be very important for developing intervention methods that benefit of the plasticity of the developing brain and skill formation to support healthy development.

Keywords: genetics,polymorphisms,brain development,behavioral development,attention,emotion,facial expressions,infants,serotonin,maternal depression
A data infrastructure to support agricultural scientific communities (AGINFRA)

Framework: FP7 — Capacities
Programme: Research Infrastructures
Destination: Support to existing research infrastructures
Action type: Combination of CP & CSA
Countries involved: Spain,Italy,Italy,Austria,Serbia,Hungary,United Kingdom,United Kingdom,India,Greece,Ecuador,China
Call:  (FP7-INFRASTRUCTURES-2011-2, 2011)
Start date: 2011-10-15
End date: 2015-02-14
Duration (months): 40.0
Total project cost (EUR): 4503029.0
EU funding (EUR): 3750000.0
Participants: 13
Project status: CLOSED

agINFRA is an Integrated Infrastructure Initiative (I3) project that will try to introduce the agricultural scientific communities into the vision of open and participatory data-intensive science. In particular, agINFRA aims to design and develop a scientific data infrastructure for agricultural sciences that will facilitate the development of policies and the deployment of services that will promote sharing of data among agricultural scientists and develop trust within and among their communities. agINFRA will try to remove existing obstacles concerning the open access to scientific information and data in agriculture, as well as improve the preparedness of agricultural scientific communities to face, manage and exploit the abundance of relevant data that is (or will be) available and can support agricultural research. Ultimately, agINFRA will demonstrate how a data infrastructure for agricultural scientific communities can be set up to facilitate data generation, provenance, quality assessment, certification, curation, annotation, navigation and management.

Keywords: scientific community-driven policy development and service deployment for data generation,provenance quality assessment,certification,curation,annotation,navigation,and management.
Universal Failsafe IGBT Package for robust power transmission (UNIPACK)

Framework: FP7 — Capacities
Programme: Research for the benefit of SMEs
Destination: Research for SMEs
Action type: Research for the benefit of specific groups
Countries involved: United Kingdom,France,Croatia,Spain,United Kingdom,Norway,United Kingdom
Call:  (FP7-SME-2011, 2011)
Start date: 2011-12-01
End date: 2013-11-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1499786.6
EU funding (EUR): 1087003.45
Participants: 8
Project status: CLOSED

Through a mixture of applied research and development, the Uni-Pack project will deliver technologies to reduce the manufacturing costs and improve the performance of plastic packaged IGBT (Insulated gate bipolar transistor) modules, in particular those for use in Voltage Source Converters (VSC) for High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) power transmission. VSC technology enables efficient access to renewable energy sources and economic connection to the electric utilities grid. Trade studies have identified target IGBT module performance parameters for the HVDC market sector and the need to address the influence of gate drive strategies on converter cell/ module performance. Tailoring of IGBT structures for on-state/ switching loss trade-off across each market sector will be demonstrated and applied to develop 4.5KV enhanced DMOS and /or trench IGBT die exhibiting optimum performance for HVDC transmission. Applied research into a high thermal performance low profile package, designed for low inductance and having fully bonded interconnects will deliver step improvements in performance / reliability and reduced manufacturing cost. An important characteristic of the package will be its capability to fail to short circuit, a feature which is highly beneficial in reducing the system costs. A VSC system is currently in the design stage using standard IGBT modules and this will be used as a benchmark to demonstrate and quantify the degree of success.

Keywords: power electronics,compliant devices,shape memory alloys,transient liquid phase materials
Is Religion Special? Reformulating Secularism and Religion in Legal and Contemporary Theory (RAPT)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Institutions, values, beliefs and behaviour
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (ERC-2011-StG_20101124, 2011)
Start date: 2012-01-01
End date: 2016-12-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1200000.0
EU funding (EUR): 1200000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

RAPT (Religion And Political Theory) aims to re-assess the foundations of the special nature of religion in legal and political theory, by reference to the growing body of multi-disciplinary literature about post secularism. Its main research question is: how can the special status of religion in secular politics and law be explained and justified? In western politics and law, religion has a special status. On the one hand, there is supposed to be a unique separation between the state and religion; and, on the other hand, the state gives special protection to religious beliefs and organizations qua religious. The religious neutrality of the state and respect for freedom of religion are the two salient features of the relationship between religion, law and politics. What is rarely noted is that these features rely on a distinctive understanding of religion, born out of the particular trajectory of western secularisation. One upshot of long-standing, protracted struggles between religious and political authorities is that, in western society at least, religion is seen as importantly and relevantly distinct from other spheres of human and social life. So, instead of presenting the problem in a simplistically dichotomous fashion (‘secular’ versus ‘religious’ or ‘post-secular’), RAPT sees religion itself as the contested term in the debate between secularism and its critics. The central hypothesis of RAPT is that the ‘specialness’ of religion is defensible in light of important political and legal ideals, but that it needs to be substantially modified and refined in response to philosophical, anthropological, historical, political and sociological post-secular critiques. To demonstrate this, RAPT is divided into three complementary projects: A Typology of the Political-Legal Construction of Religion; An Analytical Assessment of the Post-Secular Critique and A Normative Reformulation of Secularity and Religion.

Keywords: political philosophy,ethics,intellectual history,sociology of religion,comparative political science,comparative legal studies,cultural history and anthropology.
The Past in its Place: Histories of Memory in England and Wales (PASTPLACE)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Cultures and cultural production
Countries involved: United Kingdom,United Kingdom
Call:  (ERC-2011-StG_20101124, 2011)
Start date: 2012-01-01
End date: 2016-12-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1261624.8
EU funding (EUR): 1261624.8
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

This five-year project will explore the ‘history of memory’ in a range of English and Welsh locales from the early medieval period down to the modern era. Drawing on the disciplinary perspectives of literary studies and archaeology, the project will identify and interpret textual and material ‘technologies of remembrance’, including texts, oral traditions, monuments and customary practices. PASTPLACE will transcend the boundaries of periodization and discipline to examine patterns of remembrance, re-imagining and forgetting over the longue durée. Research will be organized in three strands with staggered start-dates, focusing on three types of locale strongly associated with cultural and individual memory. Strand 1 focuses on the history of death, burial and commemoration at a group of English and Welsh cathedrals. Strand 2 explores the interaction of medieval, early modern and modern people with sites of ancient habitation, including Roman settlements, Iron Age hill forts, and prehistoric tombs. Strand 3, ‘Topographies of Memory’, explores the organization of natural and historical landscape features in perceptual frameworks. Research in each strand will centre on six case studies drawn from across southern Britain, with clusterings in the southwest and the Welsh borders. The project’s findings will be disseminated in three co-authored volumes, edited by the PI, under the general title The Past in its Place. Exemplifying a fresh interdisciplinary approach to the history of memory, the project aims to ignite further research both within Britain and overseas. With its cross-period approach, innovative combination of literary and archaeological perspectives and methodologies, and multicultural focus, this timely project addresses challenges at the frontiers of multiple disciplines.

Keywords: memory,commemoration,tombs,monuments,landscapes
How the modularization of the mind unfolds in the brain (MODULAREXPERIENCE)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: The Human Mind and its complexity
Countries involved: Belgium
Call:  (ERC-2011-StG_20101124, 2011)
Start date: 2012-06-01
End date: 2017-05-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1474800.0
EU funding (EUR): 1474800.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The mind is not an unitary entity, nor is its physical substrate, the brain. Both can be divided into multiple components, some of which have been referred to as modules. Many controversies exist in cognitive science, psychology, and philosophy about the properties and the status of these modules. A compromise view is offered by an hypothesis of modularization which has two central tenets: (i) Genetic influences determine a weak non-modular organization of the mind and (ii) this map develops into a set of module-like compartments. Here we will test this hypothesis in the domain of visual object knowledge. Testable predictions are derived from a novel extension and integration of previous proposals (i) for the presence of non-modular maps (Op de Beeck et al., 2008, Nature Rev. Neurosci.), which are logical candidates for the starting point proposed in the modularization hypothesis, and (ii) for how maps might be transformed by further experience (Op de Beeck & Baker, 2010, Trends in Cognit. Sci.) into a strong compartmentalization for specific types of visual stimuli. We will determine whether the same rules govern modularization for face perception and reading, despite the very different evolutionary history of faces and word stimuli. We will apply well-known analysis tools from the psychology literature, such as multidimensional scaling, to the patterns of activity obtained by brain imaging, so that we can directly compare the structure and modularity of visual processing in mental space with the structure of “brain space” (functional anatomy). The combined behavioral and imaging experiments will characterize the properties of non-modular maps and module-like regions in sighted and congenitally blind adults and in children, and test specific hypotheses about how experience affects non-modular maps and the degree of modularization. The findings will reveal how the structure of the adult mind is the dynamic end point of a process of modularization in the brain.

Keywords: cognitive neuroscience of perception and learning multi-voxel pattern analyses
The challenge of reduced pronunciation variants in conversational speech for foreign language listeners: experimental research and computational modeling (FOREIGNCASUALSPEECH)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: The Human Mind and its complexity
Countries involved: Netherlands
Call:  (ERC-2011-StG_20101124, 2011)
Start date: 2012-01-01
End date: 2016-12-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1500000.0
EU funding (EUR): 1500000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

In today's Europe, people from different nationalities often collaborate, and, therefore have to learn to communicate in a foreign language. After several years of classes, learners are quite able to follow radio programs with clearly speaking presenters and to maintain calm conversations in the foreign language. In contrast, these learners still have great difficulties understanding everyday casual conversations. This is largely due to the reduced pronunciation variants that are ubiquitous in everyday speech. For instance, in casual conversations, the English word "particular" often sounds like "ptiku" and French "pelouse" 'lawn' like "plouse". This project will investigate how reduced pronunciation variants are understood by adults who have learned the foreign language at school and how these late learners' listening skills can be improved. We will study in several series of experiments how Spanish speakers of English and how Dutch speakers of French understand conversational speech containing pronunciation variation. We will collect detailed information on how they store reduced pronunciation variants, on how they use these mental representations, including the time courses of the processes involved, and on how their mental representations and processing can be improved. These issues cannot all be well addressed by means of existing experimental methods. We will therefore develop new methods and adapt others to the study of conversational speech. Our experimental results will lead to the formulation of the first theory of how listeners understand words in conversational speech in a foreign language. This theory will be fully computationally implemented such that it can be well tested and improved. Our results and theory will open up ways to improve current foreign language teaching methods.

Keywords: foreign language listening,foreign language teaching,reduced pronunciation variants,spontaneous speech,psycholinguistic experiments,computational modeling
New Sites of Legal Consciousness: a case study of UK advice agencies (NEWSITES)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Institutions, values, beliefs and behaviour
Countries involved: United Kingdom,United Kingdom
Call:  (ERC-2011-StG_20101124, 2011)
Start date: 2012-04-01
End date: 2016-03-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1029298.0
EU funding (EUR): 1029298.0
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

This research investigates ways in which third sector advice agencies are becoming new sites for the emergence of legal consciousness, bringing together theoretical perspectives on social policy and the sociology of translation with legal consciousness methods. It will develop understandings of legal consciousness as not simply individual practices (a form of ‘legal capability’) but as the potential for collective, political action through cultural practices of institutions that mediate between citizens and the formal institutions and practices of law. Advice agencies rather than professional lawyers are becoming key actors in legal arenas, particularly for citizens with precarious relationships to rights. Such organisations perform multiple roles. Through casework they translate complex legal structures, opening doors to enable citizens to pursue their own rights. Casework then allows agencies to see into the lives of ‘ordinary people’, forming the basis for interventions in social policy. Through re-presenting personal grievances of multiple clients as matters of public concern, they can illuminate ways in which policies and practices of powerful institutions create injustices, how mechanisms meant to enable access to justice can instead throw up barriers to justice. The research is an in-depth study of the institutional practices of UK advice organisations. It focuses principally on Citizens Advice, the leading UK advice organisation, now part of European and international networks of citizens advice services. Through case studies it will investigate ways in which advice agencies can transform people’s subjective experience of law into objective understandings of everyday injustices, thus creating a dialogue which empowers citizens and governmental processes. A study of the most long-established of the citizens advice organisations can provide a window for European policy makers and legislators through which they can understand better the social action of law.

Keywords: legal consciousness,third sector organisations,emergent publics
Elite Leadership Positions In The Emerging Second Generation (ELITES)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Institutions, values, beliefs and behaviour
Countries involved: Netherlands
Call:  (ERC-2011-StG_20101124, 2011)
Start date: 2011-12-01
End date: 2015-11-30
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1193198.4
EU funding (EUR): 1193198.4
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Research in the field of Ethnic and Migration Studies has predominantly focused on immigrants (and their children) with poor educational credentials and the lowest labor market positions. A relative blind spot has been the surge and role of new elites within these populations. The central aim of the ELITES project is to examine the formation of new elites among the Turkish second generation in eight European cities (European cities with large Turkish communities) and a comparison group of elite members of native parentage of lower class background. The ELITES project analyzes differences in the pathways, resources and individual strategies that have contributed to attaining an elite position. The project looks at the impact of these new elites upon the Turkish communities, and to what extent they take up leadership positions in mainstream organisations. For this second part of the ELITES project we focus on the networks of the elite members. The Turkish second generation elite is compared with an elite of native parentage to see if findings for the second generation Turks are specific or are part of a more general pattern. For the ELITES project we use both quantitative and qualitative research methods. We will interview in-dept 240 elites members in eight European cities. The two PhD students will investigate in their subprojects the importance of respectively ethnicity and gender in the elite formation of the two groups. In the second part of the project (sub project 3) we gather information about the closest and most crucial (for their elite position) network members of the respondents. From these network members we will also gather information about their network contacts. The resulting elites network information will be analyzed quantitatively and compared across the eight research sites. In subproject 4 we make a synthesis of the information about elite formation gathered in the two qualitative subprojects and information of the network project.

Keywords: social mobility,second generation (children of immigrants),elite formation,elite networks