Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Real-time understanding of dexterous deformable object manipulation with bio-inspired hybrid hardware architectures (FASTDEFORM)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Intra-European Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Spain
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IEF, 2011)
Start date: 2012-07-15
End date: 2014-07-14
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 168896.4
EU funding (EUR): 168896.4
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The ability to perceive and understand dexterous object manipulation from visual information, irrespective of an object’s physical characteristics, is critical for next generation robotic systems. It enables fluent interaction outside the highly constrained environments of today’s applications and allows robots to enter domestic settings and natural environments. Many approaches have been proposed to this end, but to enable real-time performance, all of them need to severely restrict model detail, degrees of freedom of articulated objects, and/or deformation complexity. The real-time aspect is critical since the perception of deformable objects under manipulation seems to be a dynamic process, in which specific actions may be efficiently used as active exploration primitives towards model abstraction. This requires closed-loop perception-action cycles. In this project, the candidate will develop a theoretical communication framework that removes a critical obstacle in current systems: the sensory/semantic communication bottleneck. In accordance with biological vision systems, the feedback and feedforward communication between dense low level sensory and compact high level semantic representations will be shaped using visual attention methods. An internal model representation will be developed that supports varying degrees of invariance to an object’s physical characteristics, and the action state space will be reduced by considering objects together with their manipulators. The candidate will also realize the communication framework as a real-time hybrid architecture by combining conventional (CPUs) with graphics processing units (GPUs). By providing multiple relevant contributions across the spectrum of the FP7 objectives in terms of its potential to advance robotic manufacturing, medical image processing, and computing paradigms, this project will enable the candidate to maintain and enhance his position at the forefront of advances in this field.

Keywords: computer vision,image processing,computational neuroscience,computer architecture
Cohomology of Bianchi Groups and Arithmetic (CBGA)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Intra-European Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IEF, 2011)
Start date: 2012-05-04
End date: 2014-05-03
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 270145.8
EU funding (EUR): 270145.8
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The goal of this proposal is to make a significant impact on the career of the researcher by diversifying his knowledge and skills through five training objectives and two exciting research projects on the cohomology of Bianchi groups. Bianchi groups are groups of the form SL(2,R) where R is the ring of integers of an imaginary quadratic fields. They arise naturally in the study of hyperbolic 3-manifolds and are central to the theory of Bianchi modular forms, that is, modular forms for GL(2) over imaginary quadratic fields. The research goal of this proposal is to make progress in our understanding of a central open problem in the theory of Bianchi modular forms: ``What is the arithmetic role of the torsion classes in the cohomology of congruence subgroups of Bianchi groups ?”. More generally, torsion classes in the cohomology of arithmetic groups present a phenomenon that is important to understand for Langlands Programme and the case of Bianchi groups is the simplest one that this phenomenon can be seen in. So any progress that will be made through this proposal is expected to have affect on the torsion phenomenon in general. We will attack this problem via two projects. The first project aims to reveal and study a relationship between 2-dimensional even mod p Galois representations of Q and torsion classes, while the second project aims to prove cases of a fundamental conjecture about the existence of 2-dimensional mod p Galois representations of imaginary quadratic fields associated to torsion classes. The training goal of our proposal is to equip the researcher further with advanced tools and knowledge while strengthening his existing skills. Through five training objectives, we aim to diversify the theoretical aspects of the research portfolio of the researcher by immersing him to the arithmetic theory of Siegel modular forms of genus 2, Jacquet-Langlands correspondence and its applications, p-adic modular forms and p-adic L-functions and others.

Keywords: number theory,automorphic forms,galois representations,cohomology of arithmetic groups
Tipping Points in Ecological Networks (TIPPEN)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Intra-European Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Spain
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IEF, 2011)
Start date: 2013-04-01
End date: 2015-03-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 168896.4
EU funding (EUR): 168896.4
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Ecosystems occasionally respond abruptly to small changes in external conditions. Such abrupt responses can represent critical transitions that occur at tipping points where the ecosystem shifts to an alternative regime. Despite the often profound consequences of tipping events, our ability to predict them is still limited. To meet this challenge, generic early-warning signals for critical transitions have recently been proposed. These signals are generic, because they may in principle work irrespectively of the specific mechanism responsible for the tipping, making their potential field of application very broad. However, they have so-far been mostly analyzed in simple models that neglect the high spatial and structural complexity that characterizes most ecosystems. The proposed project aims to help bridging this gap between complex reality and simple models by 1) analyzing how critical transitions arise in spatially and structurally complex ecological networks, and 2) investigating how this kind of critical transitions might be detected by generic early-warning signals. The anticipated results will be of more than academic interest, as the complex webs of interactions in nature are under increasing pressure and there is an urgent need to understand how we may estimate the risk of systemic collapses.

Keywords: ecology,ecosystems,resilience,critical transitions,early-warnings,foodwebs,mutualistic networks,spatial complexity,network structure,nature conservation,environmental change
Oxidative Fluorination with [18F]Fluoride - New Radiochemistry for PET Imaging (OXIFLU)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Intra-European Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IEF, 2011)
Start date: 2012-03-01
End date: 2014-02-28
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 200371.8
EU funding (EUR): 200371.8
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The objective of this proposal is to provide a solution to a well-recognised problem in 18F-radiochemistry: the direct fluorination of electron rich aromatics with a nucleophilic source of 18F-Fluoride. The value of this new radiochemistry will be challenged with the synthesis of 6-[18F]Fluoro-L-3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine ([18F]FDOPA) and 6-[18F]Fluoro-L-meta-tyrosine ([18F]FMT), two high value tracers to image the presynaptic sites of the dopaminergic system; yet these two radiotracers are notoriously difficult to produce using currently available radiochemistry. Conceptually, we advance that the nucleophilic fluorination of electron rich aromatics with fluoride may be possible using a so-called “substrate umpolung” approach. Under oxidative condition, we will revert the reactivity profile of the substrate from a nucleophilic to an electrophilic entity (umpolung), thereby allowing for nucleophilic 18F-labelling. This approach, which will rely heavily on microfluidic technology, has never been exploited for 18F-radiolabelling.

Keywords: organic chemistry,radiochemistry,positron emission tomography,pharmaceutical chemistry,nuclear medicine,radiopharmaceutical technology
Unveiling the Origin of Non-Thermal Emission in Galaxy Clusters through Advanced Numerical Simulations in the LOFAR Era. (GIANT RADIO HALOS)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Intra-European Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Italy
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IEF, 2011)
Start date: 2012-09-03
End date: 2014-09-02
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 185763.6
EU funding (EUR): 185763.6
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The origin of relativistic particles that generate the observed synchrotron radio emission in the Intra-Cluster-Medium (ICM) of galaxy clusters is one of the most mysterious problems in our understanding of these complex systems. Recent advances from observations and theory suggest that turbulence, generated during cluster-cluster mergers, has a major impact on the acceleration of relativistic particles in the ICM. We propose a 2-year project to develop advanced cosmological numerical simulations to model self-consistently the acceleration of cosmic-rays in the turbulent ICM and the resulting non-thermal emission on cluster scales, radio halos. Our simulations will provide a significant step forward in the field and yield direct predictions for radio telescopes. They will shed light on the origin of the observed radio emission and the important issue of the interplay between thermal and non-thermal components in galaxy clusters. Upcoming european projects like the LOFAR telescope are expected to discover thousands for radio halos and are going to directly benefit from our project. This promises a golden age of discoveries in this field and make our proposed project particularly timely.

Keywords: astrophysics
Block Copolymers for High Efficient Solar Cells with novel Structures (CHESS)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Intra-European Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: France
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IEF, 2011)
Start date: 2012-04-01
End date: 2014-03-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 193594.8
EU funding (EUR): 193594.8
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

This IEF project aims to address both hurdles apparent in the fabrication of Bulk Heterojunction Organic Photovoltaics (OPVs), i.e. the tailoring of the domain size to be close to the excitonic diffusion length and the stability of the blend morphology, through a wise incorporation of block copolymers in the blend that forms the active layer of OPVs. My target is to fabricate highly efficient solar cells with enhanced morphological stability and prolonged lifetimes, applying process techniques that can be easily adopted by industry. The self-assembly properties of block copolymers as well as their ability to form well controlled nanostructures and to act as compatibilizers in the blends of the respective homopolymers will be exploited to form stable nanomorphologies with optimum domain size, according to the specifications required for OPV applications. An integrated study will be conducted, starting from fundamental research on the polymer physics of the ternary system: rod-like homopolymer A – homopolymer B – rod-coil copolymer A-B. Next, the blends which exhibit the desirable co-continuous morphological characteristics will be incorporated into OPVs and the device performance and stability will be studied and optimized. Finally, I am going to apply the concepts of graphoepitaxy, a novel technique applied for the fabrication of well-ordered arrays of block copolymers, in the construction of OPVs, in an effort to realize the ideal interpenetrating structure proposed and achieve even higher efficiencies through a precise control of the nanostructure. The scope of the proposed research lies on the cutting-edge field of organic electronics (OE), which is of strategic importance for the competitiveness and the advancement of the socio-economic conditions of the European Union. The skills acquired during my studies will be complemented by the extensive experience of the host institute on OE to assure a successful accomplishment of this fully interdisciplinary project.

Keywords: photovoltaics,soft matter and polymer physics,physical chemistry,materials engineering,renewable energies
Bioactive block copolymer vesicles as pH-triggerable, nano particulate carriers for cancer vaccination (POLYTRIGG)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Intra-European Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Switzerland
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IEF, 2011)
Start date: 2012-07-01
End date: 2014-06-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 192622.2
EU funding (EUR): 192622.2
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Advanced designed vaccines have to combine proper antigen with the effective immune-stimulating agents (adjuvants) and delivery strategies in order to attain successful treatment. Presently, most vaccines are given as liquid formulations by intramuscular administration. However, nano-sized carriers of antigens hold great promise to be more effective delivery systems. To achieve the desired anti-cancer therapy; the ideal antigen nano-carrier has to fulfil a number of requirements. First of all carriers need to be (hollow) particles like with diameters in the range 50-500 nm in order to be taken up by dendritic cells (antigen-presenting cells capable to induce immune response). To facilitate the development of cellular immune responses, vaccine antigen must be presented on MHC (Major Histocompatibility Complex) class I. To win the goal, the nano-carrier should selectively bind to these cells, and be taken up into endosomes. To doing this carriers should be able to display certain adjuvants as targeting and stimulating ligands on their surface, and be capable to release its cargo upon response to pH changes in the endosome. Furthermore, vesicles have to carry and release antigen (i.e. proteins) to target destination with minor side-effects (biocompatibility and non-toxicity of carrier are essential). Hence, it is the goal of proposed project to develop nano-carriers on the basis of block copolymer vesicles (polymersomes) that have all those features. The aim is to developed polymersomes based on amphiphilic poly(2-methyloxazoline) PMOXA or (polydimethysiloxane) PDMS blocks in combination with stimulus-responsive copolymers blocks and a tunable polymersome surface chemistry. Therefore, the final goal is to provide "smart" drug delivery system with versatile surface chemistry, which will allow the attachment/incorporation of different adjuvants (e.g. saponins) and consequently enable target delivery.

Keywords: polymer technology,nanotechnology,life science
Ultracold atoms in state-dependent optical lattices for realizing novel classes of interacting spin systems and artificial gauge fields (YTTERBIUMSPINLATTICE)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Intra-European Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Germany
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IEF, 2011)
Start date: 2012-03-01
End date: 2014-02-28
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 174475.2
EU funding (EUR): 174475.2
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Ultracold atoms in optical lattices are a novel method of approaching many-body systems of strongly correlated particles, a scenario usually encountered in the context of interacting electrons in condensed matter systems. Many of these complex many-body states are notoriously hard to study, as strong interactions and correlations make a general theoretical description impossible. Ultracold atoms in lattices serve as model systems with a well-known Hamiltonian on the microscopic level, allowing for a careful analysis of those types of interacting systems for which a suitable Hamiltonian can be implemented. Our project aims to expand the range of phenomena accessible for implementation with ultracold atoms, by combining a setup of ultracold ytterbium atoms with state-dependent lattice potentials. The electronic structure of ytterbium gives rise to an extremely long-lived excited state and a high degree of decoupling of the nuclear spin from the electronic states. These two properties are central for several new approaches to implement new classes of quantum systems. Our experiment is focused on three specific systems, which are so far not reachable by using the current state of the art implementations with Alkali atoms: (1) to realize a Kondo model, relevant for example for heavy-fermion materials, which exhibit complex phase diagrams which are not yet fully understood (2) realizing a many body system with particles of half-integer spin larger than ½, exhibiting enlarged SU(N) symmetry, with complex spin-correlated quantum phases which are as yet inaccessible, often even by theoretical methods, and (3) to enable the creation of strong artificial gauge fields in optical lattices while avoiding the heating effects expected in Alkali atom implementations. Artificial gauge fields are important for quantum simulation, as they can provide effective magnetic fields for neutral atoms, which is necessary to investigate any phenomenon analog to electrons in magnetic fields.

Keywords: ultracold atoms,optical lattices,ytterbium,quantum simulation,artificial gauge fields,quantum computation,atomic physics,electronic,magnetic and superconductive properties
Solid State Chameleons: Chemical Transformations as Single Crystal Transitions (SCSCT)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: International Incoming Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IIF, 2011)
Start date: 2013-01-03
End date: 2015-01-02
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 209033.4
EU funding (EUR): 209033.4
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

This project aims to identify and exploit the properties of crystalline molecular materials that lead to single crystal to single crystal transformations (SCSCT). Chemical reactions involving bond formation and breaking generally do not proceed as SCSCT because of the significant structural rearrangement involved in the process. There exists a small class of compounds for which this phenomenon is observed, however. The observation of a SCSCT implies a highly cooperative solid state transformation from one molecule to another and has fundamental ramifications for our understanding of crystal structure. Moreover the fact that a single crystal is produced allows easy characterization of the product by X-ray crystallography. This project will proceed in three stages: 1. Design and react: This involve design, synthesis and characterization of compounds directed towards three goal reactions namely addition, substitution and condensation reactions. The Cambridge Structural Database (CSD) will be used to aid the design of target molecules for this reaction by carrying out searches for closely related crystal structures of chemically related compounds. 2. Modification: Here, compounds identified as having successful single crystal to single crystal transformations (SCSCT) will be studied in more detail. Small structural modifications will be made to these compounds and their effects on the success of the SCSCT studied. 3. Mechanistic studies: Insights will be gained by studying the nature of the SCSCT observed in 1 and 2. The exciting area of SCSCT will bring a new focus to solid state reactivity with the aim of developing a predicate similar to the topological postulate which is used frequently to determine the likely success of solid-state photochemical reactions, with a view to applying this to any molecule or reaction type and ultimately use this predicate to develop novel crystalline materials.

Keywords: physical sciences,inorganic chemistry,pharmaceutical chemistry
Identification of regulator variants in Rheumatoid Arthritis and Crohn’s Disease ("CHIP SEQ RA CD")

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: International Outgoing Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Belgium
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IOF, 2011)
Start date: 2012-06-01
End date: 2015-05-31
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 256657.8
EU funding (EUR): 256657.8
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) and Crohn’s disease (CD) are two common chronic autoimmune and complex diseases where individual susceptibility is determined by a combination of environmental and genetic factors. Almost all of the ~100 risk alleles discovered through recent genetic studies fall in non-coding region and have an elusive function. We hypothesize that risk alleles impact gene regulation by altering regulatory elements (e.g. enhancers) controlling the expression levels of genes within the same pathogenic pathway. The cell-specific variation in regulatory element (RE) activity can be identified by assaying histone modifications which correlate with chromatin states and DNA accessibility. Recently, assaying these histone modifications has become possible with ChiP seq methods, which applies high-throughput sequencing to identify genomic segments bound to antibodies to specific histone modifications. However to identify the REs impacted by risk loci, it is first necessary to determine the cells type (CT) affected by these risk loci; these cell types are not obvious in autoimmune diseases. Exploiting data on genome-wide histone marks in a library of immune-CT, we will develop a statistical method to identify the likely key pathogenic cells type by looking for immune-CTs specifically enriched in active REs containing risk loci. Subsequently, we will develop an approach to determine the cell specific REs impacted by risk loci and establish putative regulatory variant within of REs and associated with these complex disorders. I will develop this approach in my Outgoing Host Institute (Harvard Medical School) using RA as model, and will then apply it to CD in my Return Host Institute (University of Liege) where I pursue my research on the effect of regulatory risk alleles on the cell specific gene expression. This proposal will allow the discovery of new drug targets that can ultimately result in novel specific therapies for RA and CD patients.

Keywords: genetics,rheumatoid arthritis,crohn's disease,chip-seq,regulator variants,functional genomics