Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Heterostructure Nanomaterials for Water Splitting (HETMAT)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Slovenia
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2012-CIG, 2012)
Start date: 2012-11-01
End date: 2016-10-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The aim of this project is to synthesize and assemble novel nanomaterials for the purpose of water splitting through a rational design process. To achieve efficient water splitting we want to mimic photosynthesis in green plants by using the so-called Z-scheme. Briefly, the Z-scheme consists of two photosystems abbreviated as PSI and PSII. When the photosystems are illuminated with light, electrons both in PSI and PSII are excited to a higher level. Due to the specific band offset in these photosystems the photogenerated electrons in PS II are transferred to the highest occupied molecular level of PS I. These electrons then recombine with holes photogenerated at PS I. While the photogenerated electrons in PS I participate in reduction of protons to produce hydrogen, the holes in PSII oxidizes water molecules, producing oxygen. By mimicking such a Z-scheme, we expect the probabilities of charge recombination to decrease significantly, resulting in more efficient hydrogen generation. We want to design novel nanomaterials by modifying a Z-scheme type system with the following changes: 1) to engineer an interface between two different nanomaterials or to link them using a solid state electron mediator, 2) to synthesize a single heterostructure material that meets the band offset requirements, and 3) to selectively deposit metal nanoparticles only on the semiconductor phases designated as PSI. Introducing modifications into a Z-type-scheme will offer the capability of using semiconductors with band gaps less than thermo-dynamical limit (1.23 eV/pH=0) for water splitting and improve photostabilities of many catalysts. The project will primarily aim at boosting the photocatalytic activities of nanomaterials for overall water splitting i.e. attaining a quantum yield above 6.3 % at 420 nm. From the perspective of commercialization, templating systems combined with wet-chemistry synthetic routes will be developed for the preparation of the nanomaterials.

Keywords: nanotechnology,renewable energy
Multifunctional Fibre Nano Composites (MUFIN)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Spain
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2012-CIG, 2012)
Start date: 2012-10-01
End date: 2016-09-30
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The subject of this proposal is the development of fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) composites with mechanical properties in the high-performance range, electrical and thermal conductivities superior to those of carbon fibre composites. The FRPs will be produced using a bottom-up process, based on macroscopic fibres made of carbon nanotubes (CNTs), a new form of high-performance fibre with mechanical properties in the high performance range (1-6 GPa strength, 50-250 GPa stiffness), high electrical (1x106 S/m) and thermal conductivity (150 W/mK), yarn-like structure, high surface area (200-400m2/g) and which can be produced from natural gas in a one-stage process. The CNT fibres will be used to make FRPs manufactured using established techniques such as resin transfer moulding (RTM) and pultrusion. The structure of the nanocomposites will be tailored at different scales, from the nano to the macro, to maximise multifunctionality. Tailoring will be achieved by controlling the following parameters: type of nanotubes synthesised (aspect ratio, number of layers), fibre architecture (porosity, surface area, CNT orientation), and fibre-matrix interaction (sizing, functionalisation).

Keywords: g311 materials engineering,p203 thermal properties of condensed matter,p212 nanophysics
Biodiversity and ecosystem services in the microbial realm (MICRODIVE)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Germany
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2012-CIG, 2012)
Start date: 2012-10-01
End date: 2016-09-30
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Biodiversity losses and nutrient loading are considered as two major factors affecting the boundaries of a proposed safe operating space for humanity. Whereas there is knowledge about individual effects of biodiversity and eutrophication on aquatic systems, the strong interactions between these factors were only recently shown. The aim of this proposal is to develop an understanding of the complex interactions between phytoplankton biodiversity and nutrient loading in aquatic systems. The key research challenge is to determine thresholds for nutrient loading critical to maintain community stability (resiliance), and important aquatic ecosystem services in dependence of phytoplankton diversity. The planned project includes field and laboratory experiments complemented by theoretical modelling to investigate the interactions between eutrophication and biodiversity. Experiments will be performed covering a gradient from highly controlled laboratory investigations up to natural, large scale studies. To broaden the general importance of findings, the project will investigate the interaction between eutrophication and biodiversity for different European aquatic systems, including a variety of freshwater lakes but also study sites at the North Atlantic and the Baltic. One major result of this project will be to integrate key drivers of eutrophication and biodiversity loss and their impacts and interactions within a common logic. Thereby the project will gain the attention of key stakeholders by offering a framework that contributes to generate information and awareness of threats to biodiversity in Europe and beyond. The expected findings will allow analysts to explore plausible future developments that may have important implications for current and future decision making. Publication of the results from this project will be disseminated in scientific journals and will be used by scientists to plan and conduct further studies.

Keywords: environment and sustainability,conservation biology - ecology,biodiversity - ecosystem functioning,pelagic ecosystems,eutrophication
Modelling Urban Mobility in City-Scale Ubiquitous Systems (URBANMOB)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Finland
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2012-CIG, 2012)
Start date: 2013-01-01
End date: 2016-12-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The objective of this project is to utilise the data produced by Oulu’s UPI (Urban Pervasive Infrastructure) and other sources for modelling and exploiting urban flows and networks. This data captures a rich subset of the everyday life and activities taking place in the City of Oulu. As interactive communication technologies play an increasing role in our everyday lives, the infrastructure that supports these activities can be in important source of understanding the type, frequency and characteristics of citizen’s activities. Crucially, a characteristic of these technologies is mobility, and increasingly mobility has become an important aspect of technology usage and user needs. Hence, this project considers capturing and analysing various types of flows and networks of everyday life in the City of Oulu. By capturing and analysing these flows and networks, our project will develop services that better fulfil Oulu’s stakeholders’ needs.

Keywords: g105 human computer interaction and interface
The generality, mechanism, and function of bet-hedging in bacteria (BET-HEDGING BACTERIA)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2012-CIG, 2012)
Start date: 2013-02-01
End date: 2017-01-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Gene circuits exhibit fluctuations (‘noise’) in the levels of key components such as regulatory proteins. Increasingly, noise appears to play functional roles, e.g it can enable a subpopulation of cells to enter a transient antibiotic-resistant state, enhancing their survival. By ensuring that cells do not all exist in the same transcriptional state, the colony can ‘bet-hedge’ against future environmental changes. Studying bet-hedging is critical to our understanding of how bacterial gene circuits have evolved in an ever changing and hostile environment. It is also important for public health. The spread of infectious diseases can depend on activation of alternative genetic programs, such as competence, general stress response, and antibiotic persistence in bacteria. I seek to understand the mechanisms by which cells enter these alternate states. Previous gene expression assays used bulk averages over thousands of cells, causing individual cell behaviour to be lost. I will develop new approaches to attack this problem. I will use single-cell time-lapse microscopy to examine the generality of bet-hedging (Aim 1). I will construct and screen reporter strains for ~120 key pathways in B. subtilis. After screening for pathways that show variable gene expression, I will use synthetic biology and mathematical modelling techniques to discover the gene circuit mechanisms that allow cells to probabilistically enter these alternative states (Aim 2). In order to test the function of the variable gene expression observed in our reporter strain for each candidate gene I will test whether, upon addition of antibiotics or other stresses, cells that are highly expressing the candidate protein survive or grow faster than cells that are not. I will do this using a novel microfluidic device (Aim 3). This work will lead to a comprehensive understanding of how and why alternative transcriptional states are generated in bacteria.

Keywords: l211 computational biology,l213 systems biology,l812 synthetic biology and new bio-engineering concepts,l607 microbiology,l106 biophysics
Developing New Strategies for the Production of Viable Hybrid Nanocrystals with Applicability in Energy Conversion and (Photo)catalysis. (MINE)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Spain
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2012-CIG, 2012)
Start date: 2012-12-01
End date: 2016-11-30
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 75000.0
EU funding (EUR): 75000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The main objective of the 3 years research activity herein described is the design and development of protocols for the colloidal synthesis of a new generation of multi-component hybrid nanocrystals (HNCs) with precisely tunable properties and applicability in energy conversion, (photo)catalysis and environmental remediation. In this context, MINE aboard the most problematic points related to the growth of multi-component materials, in particular the conditions by which it is possible to tune both, the materials that compose the structure and the morphology of the final structure (core-shell or oligomer-like configurations), by integrating the synthesis, the structural characterization and the study of NC properties. Among all the systems we will focus on the design and development of synthetic strategies for the production of metal-semiconductor, metal-semiconductor oxide and metal-metal oxide. The research activity has been divided in four different parts: i) the development of synthetic strategies for the production of multicomponent hybrid NCs, ii) the characterization and study of their physico-chemical properties, reactivity and structure-activity relationships iii) the study of their applicability and iv) the determination of their long-term use in terms of safety, sustainability and feasibility, a necessary step before promoting the "real" applications of these novel exciting nanostructures.We expect that results arising from MINE, will allow not only preparing new and long sought materials, but also re-designing many of the existing materials and recipes, and therefore moving the state of the art to the next step, which can be seen as the fifth-generation of NCs by design

Keywords: c102 nanochemistry,c133 colloid chemistry,c112 catalysis,v101 environment and sustainability
From Quantum Field Theory to Motives and 3-manifolds (QFT-2-MOT & 3-FOLDS)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Luxembourg
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2012-CIG, 2012)
Start date: 2012-10-01
End date: 2016-09-30
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Quantization has been a potent source of interesting ideas in mathematics. This project aims to investigate a series of problems in pure mathematics, all having their roots and solutions in perturbative quantum field theory (pQFT). Below is a brief description of these subprojects. * Motivic Renormalizations: This project proposes to study motivic aspects of renormalization in order to understand number and homotopy theoretic properties of perturbative quantum field theories. The focal point of this project is to answer the main open problems of the field; explaining the presence of multiple zeta values and proving that pQFTs are indeed form E_d-algebras. * Algebraization of 3-manifolds: This project proposes a combinatorial reconstruction of 3-dimensional manifolds out of certain Feynman graphs and connections to bialgebras. This approach can be seen as a 3-dimensional generalization of the theory of Strebel differentials. It suggests a set of new invariants of 3-manifolds and their connection to the known ones (such Turaev-Viro, Reshetikhin-Turaev, finite type invariants). This combinatorial construction should also be related to a tensor model that is a generalization of Kontsevich’s matrix model in and such a model will be able to provide fundamental topological characteristics as Kontsevich’s model does in dimension two.

Keywords: quantum invariants,renormalization,motives,3-manifolds
Wnt/calcium signaling in cardiovascular development. (WNT/CALCIUM IN HEART)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Germany
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2012-CIG, 2012)
Start date: 2012-08-01
End date: 2017-02-03
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

While much is known about genetically encoded developmental pathways, the mechanisms by which the electrochemical cues interact with traditional morphogenetic pathways during embryogenesis are poorly understood. The central idea of the proposed research is to understand the interplay between major signaling pathway and electrochemical cues during embryogenesis as well as in disease. We have developed technologies to explore the role of electrochemical and other physiologic stimuli during development in the zebrafish. We have demonstrated that Wnt11 non-canonical signaling, a major developmental pathway regulating tissue morphogenesis and organ formation, patterns intercellular electrical coupling in the myocardial epithelium through effects on transmembrane Ca2+ conductance mediated via the L-type Ca2+ channel. The specific aims of the proposed research focus on determining the fundamental molecular mechanisms that lead to the attenuation of L-type Ca2+ channel function by non-canonical Wnt signals, on characterizing how non-canonical Wnt signals compartmentalize and affect different Ca2+ domains in excitable as well as non-excitable tissues and on determining how electrochemical signals modulated by Wnt11 regulate cardiac morphogenesis and cardiac function. The finding that Wnt non-canonical signaling modulates the transmebrane conductance of the L-type Ca2+ channel represents a novel limb of Wnt/Ca2+ signaling. Furthermore, it establishes a role for a major developmental pathway in the integration of intracellular and extracellular ion fluxes, and thus provides a new paradigm for studying the interplay between development and physiology, and for understanding how function and form interact not only during embryogenesis, but also during disease state.

Keywords: l305 cell differentiation - physiology and dynamics,l307 cell signalling and cellular interactions,l401 organ physiology,l407 cardiovascular diseases
Genomic Targets and Function of Topoisomerase II isoforms during Stem Cell Differentiation (TOPOCHROMSTEM)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Germany
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2012-CIG, 2012)
Start date: 2012-09-01
End date: 2016-08-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Topoisomerases are enzymes that solve topological problems arising from DNA templated processes such as replication, transcription, recombination and chromatin remodeling. The type II subfamily of Topoisomerases achieve this task by passing a region of duplex from the same or a different molecule through a double-stranded gap generated in DNA. Mammalian cells encode two isoforms of type II enzymes, Topoisomerase II alpha and beta, which have almost identical enzymatic properties in vitro. However, they show very different expression patterns and it is not known whether they differ in their distribution and action sites on the genome and in gene regulatory potential. We find that a switch in the expression from Topo II alpha to beta occurs during neuronal differentiation in vitro and in vivo. We propose to define the chromatin crosstalk of the two Topo II isoforms, alpha and beta, and its contribution to the transcriptome of embryonic stem cells and differentiated neurons respectively. We will combine our sophisticated in vitro mouse differentiation system with genome-wide identification of Topo II alpha binding sites in stem cells. These target sequences will be analyzed for any specific features using computational biology tools and related to the existing datasets of various epigenetic modifications and transcription (Tiwari et al. 2011, Nature Genetics). Using Topo II-specific inhibitors, we will identify Topo II alpha target genes that rely on its catalytic activity for their transcription state. We will next compare the Topo II alpha binding data from stem cells to our recently derived genomewide datasets of Topo II beta binding from neurons. Together, we aim to achieve an understanding of the target preference for the two Topo II isoforms, alpha and beta, with respect to sequence features, genomic regions, chromatin profile and transcription state and their dynamics as proliferating, pluripotent stem cells differentiate into postmitotic neurons.

Keywords: topoisomerases,chromatin,transcription,stem cells,neuronal differentiation,l208 epigenetics and gene regulation,l210 bioinformatics,l312 stem cell biology,l506 developmental neurobiology
“Social Studies Teachers’ Understanding and Ethical Discussion of Political Violence and Nonviolence” (UNDERVIO)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Spain
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2012-CIG, 2012)
Start date: 2012-09-01
End date: 2016-08-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

This research project proposes to investigate how social studies teachers understand the use of violence and non-violence as social and political tools to meet personal of group needs, and to manage the conflicts that may arise. More specifically, it proposes to examine the social discourses communicated through history textbooks, and the critical thinking and discursive processes that teachers display, when reflecting or participating in controversial conversations about the uses of violence and non-violence in the history of their countries, and in their current societies. The study examines too how teachers view the teaching of these topics to youth. The study is situated in the intersection of three scholarship fields: Peace and Conflict studies, peace education, and history education. The research project is conceived as a comparative qualitative study, conducting research in three different countries (Spain, Colombia, United States) that have particular histories and experiences of social and political violence and non-violence, current and historically. The comparative study is supported by collaboration with colleagues in these countries included. Investigating this problem will afford insight into key psychological and cultural elements that sustain violence or non-violence. With this furthered understanding, better educational resources and interventions will be developed.

Keywords: violence,nonviolence,peace education,history education youth,critical thinking,social discourses,narrative,identity.