Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Gravity, Black Holes and Strongly Coupled Quantum Matter (GRAVQUANTMAT)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Fundamental constituents of matter
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (ERC-2013-ADG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-03-01
End date: 2020-02-29
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1963542.0
EU funding (EUR): 1963542.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

States of matter in which the interactions between the microscopic constituents are both strong and quantum mechanical lie at the frontier of our understanding of nature. Such states appear in a wide variety of settings including high temperature superconductors, gases of cold atoms and the quark- gluon plasma created in the high-energy collisions of nuclei. Understanding the properties of such strongly coupled quantum matter poses huge conceptual challenges because standard perturbative techniques break down at strong coupling. In a remarkable development, the mathematical framework of string theory has provided a fundamentally new way to study strongly coupled quantum field theories using a dual, weakly coupled gravitational description. Furthermore, this duality states that the phase structure of the quantum field at finite temperature is precisely described by black hole geometries. The principal thrust of the proposal is to develop our understanding of these gravitational techniques in order to make contact with real world systems, particularly in condensed matter physics. The proposal focuses on four main topics in this emerging, rapidly developing and interdisciplinary field. The first is to extend our understanding of known strongly coupled quantum critical ground states using gravitational solutions and also to search for new ones. The second is to map out the phase structure of strongly coupled quantum field theories at finite temperature by constructing a wide variety of new black hole solutions. Superconducting and spatially modulated phases will be a particular focus. Thirdly, fermion spectral functions will be calculated to extend our understanding of non-Fermi liquids, which are known to arise in many materials. The fourth topic is to explore the behaviour of strongly coupled systems in situations far from thermal equilibrium by studying the dynamical process of black hole formation.
Effective Bayesian Modelling with Knowledge before Data (BAYES-KNOWLEDGE)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Computer science and informatics
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (ERC-2013-ADG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-04-01
End date: 2018-03-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1572562.0
EU funding (EUR): 1572562.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

This project aims to improve evidence-based decision-making. What makes it radical is that it plans to do this in situations (common for critical risk assessment problems) where there is little or even no data, and hence where traditional statistics cannot be used. To address this problem Bayesian analysis, which enables domain experts to supplement observed data with subjective probabilities, is normally used. As real-world problems typically involve multiple uncertain variables, Bayesian analysis is extended using a technique called Bayesian networks (BNs). But, despite many great benefits, BNs have been under-exploited, especially in areas where they offer the greatest potential for improvements (law, medicine and systems engineering). This is mainly because of widespread resistance to relying on subjective knowledge. To address this problem much current research assumes sufficient data are available to make the expert’s input minimal or even redundant; with such data it may be possible to ‘learn’ the underlying BN model. But this approach offers nothing when there is limited or no data. Even when ‘big’ data are available the resulting models may be superficially objective but fundamentally flawed as they fail to capture the underlying causal structure that only expert knowledge can provide. Our solution is to develop a method to systemize the way expert driven causal BN models can be built and used effectively either in the absence of data or as a means of determining what future data is really required. The method involves a new way of framing problems and extensions to BN theory, notation and tools. Working with relevant domain experts, along with cognitive psychologists, our methods will be developed and tested experimentally on real-world critical decision-problems in medicine, law, forensics, and transport. As the work complements current data-driven approaches, it will lead to improved BN modelling both when there is extensive data as well as none.

Keywords: decision analysis,risk
Macroscopic Entanglement in Crystals (MEC)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Fundamental constituents of matter
Countries involved: Switzerland
Call:  (ERC-2013-ADG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-02-01
End date: 2019-01-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1693500.0
EU funding (EUR): 1693500.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Quantum theory is often presented as the theory of the microscopic world. However, over the last decade, things have changed dramatically. Today one can envision manipulating large quantum systems, while mastering individual degrees of freedom. It is thus timely to ask entirely new questions on the quantum/classical transition and to support these by experimental investigations of large entanglement. The vision of this project is to explore conceptually, experimentally and technologically the limits of large entanglement of macroscopically distinguishable quantum states. We propose to demonstrate entanglement between two or more macroscopic crystals with hundreds of entanglement bits (e-bits), hundred of thousands of excitations and billions of ions. For this purpose, we’ll use Neodymium doped YSO crystals and our AFC (Atomic Frequency Comb) protocol for multimode quantum memories. Since entanglement is the signature of quantumness, this project will demonstrate “macroscopic” entanglement and help sharpening the meaning of “large” and “macroscopic”. By combining theory and experiments, questions like “What is large entanglement?” and “What deserves to be called entanglement between macroscopic systems?” will receive new insightful answers. This will deepen our understanding of Nature and in particular of the intricate meaning of meso- and macroscopic. Two further goals of this project are to demonstrate large entanglement between two crystals separated by tens of kilometres, and to teleport many qubits stored in a crystal to a distant one. Although this project is on fundamental questions, it will also contribute to improving the quantum memories required for continental scale ultra-secure quantum communications. We expect other surprising applications, in particular the high sensitivity of large entanglement to various decoherence mechanisms can be turned positively into quantum sensors.

Keywords: foundations of quantum physics
The use of genetic profiling to guide prostate cancer targeted screening and cancer care (BARCODE)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Diagnostic tools, therapies and public health
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (ERC-2013-ADG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-10-01
End date: 2020-09-30
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2499123.0
EU funding (EUR): 2499123.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Prostate cancer is the commonest solid cancer in men in the European Community. There is evidence for genetic predisposition to the development of prostate cancer and our group has found the largest number of such genetic variants described to date worldwide. The next challenge is to harness these discoveries to advance the clinical care of populations and prostate cancer patients to improve screening and target treatments. This proposal, BARCODE, aims to be ground-breaking in this area. BARCODE has two components (1) to profile a population in England using the current ~170 genetic variant profile and compare screening outcomes with those from population based screening studies to determine if genetics can target screening more effectively in this disease by identifying prostate cancer that more often needs treatment and (2) genetically profiling men with prostate cancer in the uro-oncology clinic for a panel of genes which predict for worse outcome so that these men can be offered more intensive staging and treatment within clinical trials. This will use next generation sequencing technology using a barcoding system which we have developed to speed up throughput and reduce costs. The PI will spend 35% of her time on this project and she will not charge for her time spent on this grant as she is funded by The University of London UK. The research team at The Institute Of Cancer Research, London, UK is a multidisciplinary team which leads the field of genetic predisposition to prostate cancer and its clinical application and so is well placed to deliver on this research. This application will have a dramatic impact on other researchers as it is ground –breaking and state of the art in its application of genetic findings to public health and cancer care. It will therefore influence the work being undertaken in both these areas to integrate genetic profiling and gene panel analysis into population screening and cancer care respectively.

Keywords: prostate cancer genetic profiling dna repair targeted screening and treatment
Seeing through cataracts with advanced photonics (SEECAT)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Diagnostic tools, therapies and public health
Countries involved: Spain
Call:  (ERC-2013-ADG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-02-01
End date: 2019-01-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2374910.0
EU funding (EUR): 2374910.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Cataract is the opacification of the crystalline lens of the human eye. It is usually related with age and is one of the leading causes of blindness. The increase in light scatter in the lens reduces the contrast in the retinal images severely degrading vision. The current solution is to perform surgery to remove the natural lens that is substituted by an artificial intraocular lens. This is a successful procedure restoring good quality of vision in most patients. However, in many situations it would be incredible advantageous to actually “see” through a cataractous eye. The optics of the eye is affected by two factors: aberrations and scatter. In the last decade, correcting optical aberrations in the eye was accomplished by using adaptive optics techniques. This permitted to obtain high resolution images of the retina and also to improve vision. However, the possibility of correcting scatter in the eye was never considered before. We propose here the use of spatial and temporal advanced photonics techniques for imaging through the turbid media of the cataractous lens. We envision two direct applications of this technology: a dedicated fundus camera to register images of the retina in patients affected by cataracts and a novel type of opto-electronics spectacles restoring some vision in cataract patients. The fundus camera would offer clinicians the unique opportunity to determine if there is any retinal pathology underneath the cataractous eye. The scatter-correcting goggles would be useful in those cases where surgery were not possible for any reason or as a temporarily relieve until the surgery is performed. The same type of technology could be applied in the case of normal eyes with lower levels of scatter but desiring to achieve a better than normal vision for some specific tasks. This proposal presents a completely new and disruptive idea, which if successful would render immediate and significant benefits to patients worldwide.
Habitability of Martian Environments: Exploring the Physiological and Environmental Limits of Life (HOME)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Universe sciences
Countries involved: Germany,Germany
Call:  (ERC-2013-ADG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-08-01
End date: 2019-12-31
Duration (months): 65.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2494214.8
EU funding (EUR): 2494214.8
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

The low average temperature and low water activity of the Martian near-surface environment makes it challenging for living organisms to persist and propagate. Nonetheless, recent mission results indicate that environmental conditions exceed locally and temporarily the lower thresholds for life to exist. Furthermore, specific soil minerals, or combinations thereof, appear to provide a suitable habitat for microbial life, especially if associated with low-temperature brines or hygroscopic salts. Thus, a quantitative understanding of the habitability potential of the Martian near-surface environment, past and present, is very much needed and the focus of this proposal. To achieve this objective, we will test different types of soils and some of Earth’s hardiest organisms, using them as models (‘Mars-analogues’), to see if they can survive and perhaps even grow under the various environmental stresses known to exist on Mars. A major tool of our laboratory investigations will be the experimentally proven state-of-the-art Mars Simulation Chamber at the German AeroSpace Center, to which various soils materials and microorganisms will be exposed. The planned experimental investigations and models will be concurrently updated by analyzed mission data, particularly from landers and rovers (e.g., Curiosity Rover), to adjust our work to the newest Martian geochemical and environmental data available. Results from our proposed work will timely provide critical scientific knowledge to interpret incoming data from ESA’s ExoMars mission, which is scheduled for launch in 2016/2018. As one important deliverable of our work we will also construct a Mars Soil Analyzer, an instrument which will be designed for a future mission to Mars with the objective to achieve Technology Readiness Level 6 at the completion of the proposed study.

Keywords: mars,planetary surface,extremophile,oxidants,extraterrestrial hydrogeology
A new neuroimaging modality: from bench to bedside (FUSIMAGINE)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Diagnostic tools, therapies and public health
Countries involved: France
Call:  (ERC-2013-ADG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-05-01
End date: 2020-02-29
Duration (months): 70.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2497603.0
EU funding (EUR): 2497603.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

NeuroImaging systems are invaluable tools in the understanding of the brain both for fundamental research and clinical diagnosis. However, recent improvements in deep brain imaging technology have been somewhat limited because most of them are based on incremental innovation of mature techniques (EEG, PET and fMRI) instead of breakthrough. In FUSIMAGINE, a genuinely new functional brain imaging modality will be developed and validated whose performances could have a major impact in neuroscience from fundamental research to clinical applications. This new modality is based on the use of ultrafast ultrasound scanners able to reach more than 10 000 frames per second (fps) compared to the usual 50 fps in conventional ultrasound scanners. This concept relies on compounded plane wave transmissions introduced by my team and demonstrates up to 100-fold increase in the sensitivity of blood flow measurements. It enables to image the subtle hemodynamic changes in small brain vessels and thus brain activity thanks to neurovascular coupling. Functional Ultrasound (fUS by analogy to fMRI) is a real breakthrough in brain imaging as our project will demonstrate that: in neuroscience, fUS provides a unique real time, portable and deep brain functional imaging technique for awake and even freely moving small animal imaging, moreover with unprecedented spatiotemporal resolution (~100µm, 50ms). in clinical diagnosis, fUS provides a unique bedside neuro-imaging system of newborns brain activity through the fontanel window. Such real time system will permit to monitor and better understand neonatal seizures and hemorrhages. On adults, fUS provides a unique functional imaging modality during neurosurgery to predict the cortical mapping remodeling resulting of tumor development (such as low-grade gliomas). Finally, new adaptive skull bone correction techniques implemented on the system will enable us to perform non invasive transcranial fUS imaging on human adults through the temple bone.
A Functional Architecture of the Brain for Vision (FAB4V)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: The Human Mind and its complexity
Countries involved: Netherlands
Call:  (ERC-2013-ADG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-07-01
End date: 2020-06-30
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2499139.0
EU funding (EUR): 2499139.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

We are visual animals. Seeing is our prime means for probing the outside world. Although vision appears effortless, we dedicate about a quarter of our most precious organ to this most prominent of all senses. The primary objective of this research programme is to develop a rigorous new view on how the human brain process visual information. This endeavour is based on two concepts: the methodological issue of necessity and the theoretical framework of cortical networks. In the last decades, electrophysiological and neuroimaging studies have identified more than 40 separate maps in the brain that are selectively tuned to specific visual features, such colour or motion. Brain-behaviour relationships inferred from electrophysiology and functional neuroimaging are per definition correlational. We need neuropsychological research with patients who suffered focal brain damage to show us which brain structures are necessary. Only structures that, when damaged, have a selective detrimental effect on the execution of that function are necessary. Other structures that are activated during the execution of that function are merely involved in associated processes. Having established which brain structures are necessary for a specific function, the proposed research programme will investigate how these necessary maps are linked together. As a theoretical perspective, this programme adopts a critical position towards the “what and where pathways” model of Goodale & Milner, the current gold standard. The model postulates two major pathways, each involving a large number of maps; one for processing visuospatial information for motor programming, and one for visual recognition and memory. I have recently suggested an alternative model in which the maps are thought to be organised in multiple overlapping networks. This research programme entails dedicated imaging experiments and a large-scale, neuropsychological study involving four academic medical centres in the Netherlands.

Keywords: functional architecture visual cortex retinotopic maps
Understanding the atmospheric circulation response to climate change (ACRCC)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Earth system science
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (ERC-2013-ADG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-03-01
End date: 2020-02-29
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2489151.0
EU funding (EUR): 2489151.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Computer models based on known physical laws are our primary tool for predicting climate change. Yet the state-of-the-art models exhibit a disturbingly wide range of predictions of future climate change, especially when examined at the regional scale, which has not decreased as the models have become more comprehensive. The reasons for this are not understood. This represents a basic challenge to our fundamental understanding of climate. The divergence of model projections is presumably related to systematic model errors in the large-scale fluxes of heat, moisture and momentum that control regional aspects of climate. That these errors stubbornly persist in spite of increases in the spatial resolution of the models suggests that they are associated with errors in the representation of unresolved processes, whose effects must be parameterised. Most attention in climate science has hitherto focused on the thermodynamic aspects of climate. Dynamical aspects, which involve the atmospheric circulation, have received much less attention. However regional climate, including persistent climate regimes and extremes, is strongly controlled by atmospheric circulation patterns, which exhibit chaotic variability and whose representation in climate models depends sensitively on parameterised processes. Moreover the dynamical aspects of model projections are much less robust than the thermodynamic ones. There are good reasons to believe that model bias, the divergence of model projections, and chaotic variability are somehow related, although the relationships are not well understood. This calls for studying them together. My proposed research will focus on this problem, addressing these three aspects of the atmospheric circulation response to climate change in parallel: (i) diagnosing the sources of model error; (ii) elucidating the relationship between model error and the spread in model projections; (iii) understanding the physical mechanisms of atmospheric variability.

Keywords: climate variability,atmospheric circulation,climate models,regional climate change