Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Biophysics and circuit function of a giant cortical glutamatergic synapse (GIANTSYN)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Neuroscience and Disorders of the Nervous System
Panel description: Nervous system development, homeostasis and ageing, nervous system function and dysfunction, systems neuroscience and modelling, biological basis of cognitive processes and of behaviour, neurological and mental disorders
Countries involved: Austria
Call: ERC Advanced Grant (ERC-2015-AdG, 2015)
Start date: 2017-03-01
End date: 2022-08-31
Duration (months): 66.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2677500.0
EU funding (EUR): 2677500.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

A fundamental question in neuroscience is how the biophysical properties of synapses shape higher network computations. The hippocampal mossy fiber synapse, formed between axons of dentate gyrus granule cells and dendrites of CA3 pyramidal neurons, is the ideal synapse to address this question. This synapse is accessible to presynaptic recording, due to its large size, allowing a rigorous investigation of the biophysical mechanisms of transmission and plasticity. Furthermore, this synapse is placed in the center of a memory circuit, and several hypotheses about its network function have been generated. However, even basic properties of this key communication element remain enigmatic. The ambitious goal of the current proposal, GIANTSYN, is to understand the hippocampal mossy fiber synapse at all levels of complexity. At the subcellular level, we want to elucidate the biophysical mechanisms of transmission and synaptic plasticity in the same depth as previously achieved at peripheral and brainstem synapses, classical synaptic models. At the network level, we want to unravel the connectivity rules and the in vivo network function of this synapse, particularly its role in learning and memory. To reach these objectives, we will combine functional and structural approaches. For the analysis of synaptic transmission and plasticity, we will combine direct preand postsynaptic patch-clamp recording and high-pressure freezing electron microscopy. For the analysis of connectivity and network function, we will use transsynaptic labeling and in vivo electrophysiology. Based on the proposed interdisciplinary research, the hippocampal mossy fiber synapse could become the first synapse in the history of neuroscience in which we reach complete insight into both synaptic biophysics and network function. In the long run, the results may open new perspectives for the diagnosis and treatment of brain diseases in which mossy fiber transmission, plasticity, or connectivity are impaired.

Keywords: hippocampus,mossy fiber,synaptic transmission,synaptic plasticity,presynaptic terminal,exocytosis,pattern completion,neuronal networks
Cybersecurity anomaly detection solution for critical infrastructures (SIGAGuard)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Societal Challenges
Programme: Secure societies - protecting freedom and security of Europe and its citizens
Action type: SME instrument
Countries involved: Israel
Call: Engaging SMEs in security research and development (H2020-SMEINST-1-2016-2017, 2017)
Start date: 2018-04-01
End date: 2018-07-31
Duration (months): 4.0
Total project cost (EUR): 71429.0
EU funding (EUR): 50000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

SIGAGuard is a next generation cybersecurity technology measuring low-level electric signals in order to detect at an early stage cybersecurity threats and operational anomalies in ICS-SCADA systems. SIGAGuard is the first cybersecurity solution today that monitors electrical signals generated between the control systems (PLC) and the end-point. This is important because 1) it makes the SIGA technology itself immune to cyber-attacks, as well as completely transparent to cyber-attacks on the SCADA system it is monitoring, and 2) it means that SIGAGuard effectively “insulates” the SCADA-controlled equipment from any outside interference (hacking) via the rest of the system, and can provide accurate early warning when an anomaly is detected, reducing unexpected equipment damage and increasing operational safety, efficiency, and reliability. SIGAGuard has successfully been tested with 2 large Israeli operators (Hagihon Water Company and Israel Electric Corporation) and is ready to be rolled out into the critical infrastructure protection market, estimated to grow from €90Bn in 2016 to €130 Bn by 2021 (source: Market and Markets). SIGAGuard is sold as a package of hardware and software (one-time fee depending on size/complexity, average €250k per customer) plus a 15% annual fee for service & maintenance. Unlike competing solutions that can be deceived by advanced malware able to feed fake operational parameters to supervisory systems, SIGAGuard is deployed at the lowest tier of the infrastructure (end point), providing direct feedback on the physical parameters (electric signals) of the industrial components to be monitored. This capability makes SIGAGuard the first uncircumventable solution for the detection of anomalies in critical infrastructures. SIGA is led by the former Director and the Deputy Director of Israel’s National Cyber Security Authority.

Keywords: critical infrastructure,electric signal monitoring,machine learning,anomaly detection
Laser remote sensing for monitoring air pollution over cities (PM-scanner)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Proof of concept grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Earth system science
Panel description: Physical geography, geology, geophysics, atmospheric sciences, oceanography, climatology, cryology, ecology, global environmental change, biogeochemical cycles, natural resources management
Countries involved: Greece
Call: Call for proposals for ERC Proof of Concept Grant (ERC-2020-PoC, 2020)
Start date: 2021-04-01
End date: 2022-09-30
Duration (months): 18.0
Total project cost (EUR): 150000.0
EU funding (EUR): 150000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Poor air quality in cities around the world is a major societal and economic issue, causing more than 5.5 million premature deaths and resulting in €4.3 trillion in welfare losses. Preserving and improving the public health requires effective monitoring of air pollutants from their sources to their transport within the city web, however existing air quality monitoring networks have either very low spatial resolution or low accuracy to serve this purpose. Building on the technology solutions developed within the D-TECT ERC CoG, our project aims to cover this gap by commercializing the "PM-scanner", a remote sensing instrument which will monitor particulate matter (PM) concentration over large areas with unprecedented accuracy and high spatial and temporal resolution. Briefly, the instrument will emit laser pulses and observe the intensity and polarization state of the backscatter light as it travels in the atmosphere; these data will be analysed using dedicated Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms to provide PM2.5 and PM10 concentration at multiple locations above a city. We envision that the PM-scanner will be a powerful tool to regional governments, environmental protection agencies and polluting industries, allowing effective real-time monitoring of pollution agents and supporting data-driven air quality policies and actions. Within the proposed PoC project, we aim to verify the innovation potential of the PM-scanner idea by establishing a defensible IP position, building a realistic demonstrator of the PM data products based on the D-TECT Wall-E lidar prototype, and validating our approach by interacting with stakeholders in the envisaged value chain.

Keywords: air pollution,smart cities,remote sensing
Tracking and decoding individual memories across the brain from creation to long-term storing (FUS-REPLAY)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Individual Fellowships (IF)-Global Fellowships
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Life Sciences
Countries involved: France,Canada
Call: Individual Fellowships (H2020-MSCA-IF-2020, 2020)
Start date: 2022-04-14
End date: 2025-04-13
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 262385.28
EU funding (EUR): 262385.28
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

How can we vividly remember so many episodes of our life that, by definition, only happened once? During wakefulness, the hippocampus – a brain structure critical for episodic memory – encodes ‘memory traces’ of our experience. During sleep, it “replays” the very same sequences of neurons that were originally activated during the awake episode. Such reactivations are essential for memory consolidation. Over the years, a growing body of studies have unveiled “on-site” reactivations within the hippocampus, sometimes with a neocortical or subcortical “partner” structure, but the overall activity in the brain during these events remains largely unknown. It is unclear whether brain regions replay memory traces all at once or separately. This is a major knowledge gap because numerous cortical and subcortical structures strongly influence memory. In this project, we propose a unique combination of recording and analysis techniques to reveal the whole-brain correlates of hippocampal replay. To achieve this, we will use functional ultrasound, a newly emerging technology which monitors subtle changes in cerebral blood flow over the whole brain at a resolution up to tens of milliseconds, in combination with high-density electrophysiology, the actual gold-standard to record neuronal activity. With the help of a dedicated behavioral task, we will first establish ‘brain maps’ associated with hippocampal replay and then learn how to decode a specific memory trace from these maps. In a second time, we will investigate how emotional valence affects these maps, and in particular how replay patterns are modified over the course of learning. This project has the potential to track across the brain an individual memory trace from its creation to storage, all along consolidation processes. This project will considerably enhance our understanding of memory networks and potentially provide new regions of interest for the study of neurodegenerative disorders.

Keywords: memory,sleep,electrophysiology,neuroimaging,ripples,hippocampus
Enabling flexible material flow for smart warehouses and smart factories (Celluveyor)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Industrial Leadership
Programme: Innovation in SMEs
Action type: SME instrument
Countries involved: Germany
Call: SME instrument (H2020-EIC-SMEInst-2018-2020-3, 2020)
Start date: 2020-05-01
End date: 2022-04-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 3191068.75
EU funding (EUR): 2233748.13
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The strong growth in e-commerce and consumer expectations for ever-increasing product variety and fast delivery present logistics companies and manufacturers with unprecedented challenges. The digitisation of industry will enable faster, more flexible and more efficient manufacturing, including mass customisation, to meet these challenges but material flow systems have not kept up with the huge strides made in manufacturing. Even current state-of-the-art systems are mechanical constructions that take up a lot of space, whose layout cannot be changed once built and which can carry out only a single pre-defined function. Cellumation's innovation is the celluveyor, a multi-functional software-driven conveying and positioning system designed to make material flow systems faster, completely flexible and more efficient. The system's core consists of hexagonal cells with several individually driven omnidirectional wheels. These cells form a flat surface, in a "Lego"-like structure, with the moving wheels uppermost. Objects sit on this surface and are moved by the action of the turning wheels. Each system takes up to 95% less space than competing systems, can handle all functions required and the function can be changed by customers' staff with a few clicks on a laptop. Cellumation has sold nine TRL6 prototype systems in Germany, Spain and the UK. The market is huge at €26bn+: every factory and every logistics centre has conveyor belts. Cellumation has keen buying interest from several well-known manufacturing companies in the EU and the US. The objectives of this project are to reduce cell costs by 50%, to expand functionality to include limp plastics as well as smaller objects and to ensure that our software and the entire system are easy to use. Cellumation's goal is for celluveyor to become the state-of-the-art conveyor technology and a key part of the distribution centres and manufacturing plants of the future.

Keywords: material flow technology,conveyors,industry 4 0,logistics 4 0,automation
3D Silicon Micromachining with Infrared ultrafast LasErs (SMILE)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Individual Fellowships (IF)-Standard European Fellowships
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Information Science and Engineering
Countries involved: Türkiye
Call: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF-EF) (H2020-MSCA-IF-2014, 2014)
Start date: 2015-09-30
End date: 2017-09-29
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 145845.6
EU funding (EUR): 145845.6
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The aim of the present proposal is to initiate an interdisciplinary research program to develop 3D micromachining of silicon towards novel silicon photonics and microfluidic applications. We are motivated by the myriad of applications based on 3D micromachining of glass that peaked in the early 2000's, and still continues to impact integrated photonics and microfluidics, among other fields. These successes were achieved using lasers at wavelengths for which glass is transparent (most commonly 1 um, 800 nm and their second harmonics). Most of the important results demonstrated in glass can be carried over to silicon using a long-wavelength laser (beyond 1.1 um, silicon is highly transparent), though it is clear that the physics will be different, not least because glass is amorphous and silicon is crystalline. To this end, we propose an interdisciplinary research effort that includes first developing the necessary laser technology, then building up the physical understanding, and finally pursuing high impact applications. Our approach can be summarized as: (1) Developing a novel, femtosecond, high-energy laser at 1.5 um, (2) Developing in-situ diagnostics based on pump-probe imaging of the laser-material interaction, (3) Exploring the physics of the laser-silicon interaction, (4) Applying our physical understanding and laser technology as a platform to 3D micromachining of silicon towards novel silicon-photonics and microfluidic applications.

Keywords: femtosecond,fiber laser,silicon,material processing,micromachining,microfluidics
Lists in Literature and Culture: Towards a Listology (LISTLIT)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Cultures and cultural production
Panel description: Literary studies, cultural studies, study of the arts, philosophy
Countries involved: Germany
Call: ERC Starting Grant (ERC-2016-STG, 2016)
Start date: 2017-04-01
End date: 2022-03-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1382500.0
EU funding (EUR): 1382500.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

LISTLIT investigates the cultural practice of lists and list making and its manifestations in narrative texts from antiquity until the twenty-first century. The simple form of the list has been remarkably constant for centuries: as a practical device, lists have been a prime instrument for classifying, organizing, and categorizing the world since the early high civilizations. Lists are tools of the mind: in visualizing human beings’ thinking, they are indicative of cognitive processes. In literary texts, list structures have been employed at least since antiquity. The manifold configurations of lists in literature and their enmeshment with the practical usage of lists in a given period take centre stage in this project. How are lists as a tool for thinking and organizing the world in everyday life and lists in literature intertwined? Embedded in narrative texts, lists challenge the received parameters of how narrative texts work. The study of lists in the trajectory of cognition, narration, and practical usage thus provides a risky and challenging alternative approach to narrative forms and functions, reader engagement, and the aesthetics of literature. Situated at the heart of the intersections between cognitive theory, cultural history, and literary history, LISTLIT significantly advances our understanding of how literature and list making as a cognitive tool and cultural practice are interrelated. By scrutinizing the practices of list writing in and beyond literary texts, LISTLIT establishes a ‘listology’, that is, the systematic and diachronic study of lists and listing structures in cultural productions.

Keywords: cognitive theory,narrative,form,empirical humanities
Neuromechanical Simulation and Sensory Feedback for the Control of Bionic Legs (SimBionics)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Innovative Training Networks (ITN)-European Industrial Doctorates
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Information Science and Engineering
Countries involved: Germany,Netherlands,Denmark
Call: Innovative Training Networks (H2020-MSCA-ITN-2019, 2019)
Start date: 2019-09-01
End date: 2023-08-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1072995.84
EU funding (EUR): 1072995.84
Participants: 3
Project status: SIGNED

Robotic lower limb prostheses, or bionic legs, have underwent tremendous mechatronic advances in the past decade. However, current prosthesis control interfaces are still sub-optimal leading to inefficient walking. To address this limit, there is need for highly trained professionals that work at the intersection of academic research, clinical assessment and market translation. However, current doctoral training programs do not equip candidates with the complex skillset required to develop prosthetic limbs. SimBionics will establish a comprehensive training program that will equip Early Stage Researchers (ESRs) with the engineering, clinical and entrepreneurial skills required to bring an idea into the market. SimBionics brings together two internationally recognized academic centers, one clinical center and one of the world leading companies in prosthetics. Four ESRs will be trained to develop a radically new control interface that integrates, for the first time, neuromechanical modeling and artificial sensory feedback. This will enable bionic legs to mimic the mechanics of their biological counterparts, so that amputees perceive the prosthesis as an extension of their own body. ESR training will cover all phases of development; from technology conceptualization to translation into a successful product. ESRs will learn to investigate user and stakeholder requirements. They will learn regulatory aspects for medical products, reimbursement mechanisms, intellectual property, and elements that can block successful development. ESRs will thus receive a tailored career development plan including skills acquisition, project/teamwork management, and open science/gender aspects. Outreach activities will be realized to improve public understanding of SimBionics’ socio-economical potentials and clinical benefits. SimBionics will enhance ESRs’ career perspectives and establish a reference for technology development training program.

Keywords: prosthesis control,musculoskeletal modelling,sensory feedback
The Sun-chariot’s Journey Towards the Nordic Sky: on the (Pre-)History of Ideas on Sky, Sun, and Sunlight in Northern Europe (SunSHINE)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Individual Fellowships (IF)-Standard European Fellowships
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Social Sciences and Humanities
Countries involved: Denmark
Call: Individual Fellowships (H2020-MSCA-IF-2019, 2019)
Start date: 2020-07-01
End date: 2022-06-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 207312.0
EU funding (EUR): 207312.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The objectives of my project are: (1) to further develop the field of Comparative Indo-European Poetics (CIEP) and to strengthen the interdisciplinary collaboration between Historical Linguistics and Archaeology; (2) to apply the approach of CIEP to Old Norse (ON) and Germanic (Gmc.) texts by analysing poetic phraseology and mythological conceptions concerning the sky, the sun, and sunlight which find correspondences in other Indo-European (IE) traditions and may reflect Proto-Indo-European (PIE) heritage; (3) to connect the results of this analysis with prehistoric archaeological artefacts by means of an interdisciplinary approach to these issues. Spoken more than 5000 years ago, PIE is the reconstructed ancestor of all IE languages, among which are Hittite, Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit, as well as ON and other ancient Gmc. languages (such as Old English and Old Saxon). By studying these languages in a comparative perspective, historical linguists have reconstructed not only an impressive amount of the words of PIE, but also of its traditional formulas and poetic phrases. These are the subject of study of CIEP, whose approach has only sporadically been applied to ON and Gmc. texts. CIEP gives us precious insights into the mythological beliefs of the speakers of PIE: inter alia, we can reconstruct numerous PIE poetic images and cosmological conceptions concerning the day-lit sky, the sun, the sunlight, and the deities which were associated with them. Some of these conceptions are, on the one hand, attested in ON and Gmc. texts and, on the other hand, have parallels in Bronze Age archaeological artefacts belonging to Northern and Central European prehistoric cultures, whose formation has recently been traced back by scholars of Archaeology, Genomics, and Archaeolinguistics (an interdisciplinary field combining Historical Linguistics and Archaeology) to contacts between pre-existing populations of Neolithic farmers and migrating groups of PIE-speaking pastoralists.

Keywords: indo european,comparative mythology,comparative poetics,phraseology,formularity,germanic,old norse,edda,archaeolinguistics