Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Coherent ultrafast spectroscopy and manipulation of excitonic Q-bits (CUSMEQ)

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-2007-2-1-IEF, 2007)
Start date: 2008-03-01
End date: 2010-02-28
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 178874.06
EU funding (EUR): 178874.06
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The research field of the proposed subject is the coherent, ultrafast spectroscopy and manipulation of individual excitonic state confined within a semiconductor quantum dot. Due to technological advances in light detectors and microscopy techniques, the investigation of the emission properties of individual, localized light emitters is now routinely possible. These investigations have led to significantly improved insight into the electronic dynamics of these systems and their temporal instabilities due to the environment. The observation of coherence in these systems and the manipulation by coherent control is, however, still at an early stage. On the other hand, the latter techniques are a prerequisite for the use of optical transitions in single quantum dots as qubits in quantum information processing. Recently a novel optical detection scheme, heterodyne-detected spectrally resolved four-wave mixing (FWM) has been developed. It has the advantage of a multi-channel detection of all spectral FWM components simultaneously, a shot-noise limited sensitivity, and a retrieval of amplitude and phase of the FWM signal. These properties are achieved even in the presence of a strong background from the optical excitation pulses. Having this technique at hand, the coherent control and the implementation of all-optical quantum gates can be approached. The demonstration of quantum computational operations using individual quantum systems in solid state is the next step towards the realization of a solid state quantum computer. The project will include an advanced training of the fellow in the heterodyne-detected FWM technique. This technique will be applied to investigate and manipulate coherence properties not only of quantum dots, but also of quantum dot molecules and quantum dots embedded in a pillar microcavity.

Keywords: solid state physics,optical and dielectric properties,ultrafast spectroscopy,semiconductor nanostructures,excitons,quantum computing,coherent control,four-wave mixing
Molecular Applied to Invertebrate Evolution. Systematics on Tardigrada (MAIE. ST)

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: Denmark
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2007-2-1-IEF, 2007)
Start date: 2008-04-01
End date: 2009-11-30
Duration (months): 20.0
Total project cost (EUR): 201923.71
EU funding (EUR): 201923.71
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Tardigrada is an invertebrate phylum that comprises more than 959 species of micrometozoans, which size is up to 1.2 mm. Tardigrade are interesting by both, their capacity to survive under unfavourable conditions in a latency state called cryptobiosis, and their controversial phylogenetic position within Invertebrata. Tardigrade research has been restricted to the more basic topics (taxonomy and basic ecological patterns), being biased and incomplete. Remainder information continues to be neglected. As a result of this lack of information, the main objective of this proposal is to progress in knowledge on Tardigrada evolution, using all the information we will be able to generate. One of our main objectives will be to include more taxa (families Hypsibiidae, Calohypsibiidae and Macrobiotidae and, if possible, Microhypsibiidae, Necopinatidae, and Apodibius) and different genetic markers (5.8S rRNA, Histone H3, heavy chain of Myosin, elongation factors-1α and 2, RNA polymerase II, and EST sequences) in phylogenetic analyses. On the other hand, we would like to examine specimens from all genera from class Eutardigrada in Tardigrada collection from University of Copenhagen, to update morphological matrix from Guil´s Thesis with direct observations. Once we have a stable phylogeny, we will study the evolution of different characteristics in tardigrades (reproductive modes, their distribution through different habitats, claws and buccopharyngeal apparatus morphology, substances from cryptobiosis and cryptobiosis as a process itself), using the comparative method in phylogenetic analyses. An increase of knowledge within tardigrades will probably solve, or at least will help, to understand Ecdysozoan evolution, since this is, probably, a key taxa in evolutionary understanding. Furthermore, an innovative field such as biomedicine could use this information in its earliest steps, since they need basic evolutionary knowledge to progress.

Keywords: natural sciences,zoology,systematic zoology,molecular evolution,tardigrada,class eutardigrada
Nonlinear solid biomechanics: theory, experiments, computations, applications. (BIOMECH)

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: Ireland
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2007-2-1-IEF, 2007)
Start date: 2008-09-01
End date: 2010-08-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 250280.16
EU funding (EUR): 250280.16
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Dr Michel Destrade is a French national; he was trained in Physics and Chemistry in France and in Mathematical Physics in Ireland; he has been working successively as a Lecturer in Mathematics in the USA and as a Researcher in Mechanics in France. He is requesting funds for two years, to work with Professor Michael Gilchrist and join his group of Mechanical Engineering at University College Dublin, Ireland. The overall scientific aim of the Project is to improve understanding of the nonlinear mechanics of soft biological tissue such as arterial wall tissue, brain stem, or skin, with particular reference to the influences of residual stress, of inhomogeneity, of anisotropy, and of external fields (e.g. electromagnetic) on the mechanical response and on stability. Ongoing work in these areas is still in its infancy, and the Project proposes a bottom-up approach to their investigation. As the Project progresses, the emphasis will shift from theoretical modelling (relying on the Applicant’s expertise) to experimental validation and numerical simulations (using the Host Laboratory’s expertise), with a view to industrial and medical applications (taking advantage of the Host Institution’s experience in training, communication, scientific management, intellectual property issues, etc.).

Keywords: engineering mathematics,biomechanics,biomaterial engineering
Amorphisation of Negative Thermal Expansion Materials under Pressure (GOODWIN2007IEFPHYS)

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-2007-2-1-IEF, 2007)
Start date: 2009-10-01
End date: 2011-09-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 162509.69
EU funding (EUR): 162509.69
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Negative thermal expansion (NTE; volume decrease on heating) is an unusual phenomenon of inherent interest and with important technological applications - e.g. in countering the more usual positive thermal expansion of other materials. The recent discovery of extreme NTE in many cyanide-containing materials has opened a new window into this unusual behaviour, revealing how the increased local flexibility of molecular units can have profound effects on many physical properties at the macroscopic scale - not only producing NTE, but also giving rise to unusual bulk and shear moduli and anomalous pressure-dependent properties. One of the most important pressure dependencies recently linked to NTE is pressure-induced amorphisation (PIA). This process - in which the application of pressure transforms the initially-periodic crystal lattice into a glass-like network - creates many new chemical bonds, absorbing large quantities of energy. There is clear potential to exploit PIA in high-stress applications, or even in the containment of nuclear waste. But because the fields of both NTE and PIA are really quite new (and particularly for cyanides), there is much about the pressure-dependent behaviour of NTE phases yet to be learned before their technological applications can be developed fully. This proposal aims to achieve a thorough, systematic and application-driven study of pressure-dependent behaviour in highly-flexible NTE phases. This builds on the expertise in high-pressure work found at Montpellier together with Dr Goodwin's background in studying NTE materials and structural transitions (including PIA). The specific aims are: 1. Understand the link between NTE and pressure-induced transformations such as PIA. 2. Identify and develop new NTE materials with technologically-relevant properties. 3. Quantify the pressure effects of host/guest interactions in nanoporous NTE phases. 4. Study the interplay between NTE and piezoelectricity in quartz-like NTE phases.

Keywords: crystallography,mechanical and thermal properties,negative thermal expansion
Climate variability and associated limnological changes in the coldest region of Eurasia over the past millennium: chironomid-based reconstructions in NE Siberia (SIBCLIMLAKE)

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: Netherlands
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2007-4-2-IIF, 2007)
Start date: 2008-09-01
End date: 2010-08-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 225105.81
EU funding (EUR): 225105.81
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Understanding the climatic instability on decadal to centennial timescales is essential for determining the baseline and recent trends of climatic variations. Our study has the aim to reconstruct climatic variability and climate impact on lakes over the last millennium in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), the coldest region of Eurasia. This goal will be achieved by means of chironomid analysis (Diptera: Chironomidae) of littoral and deep-water sediment records from three arctic lakes located in the northeastern Siberian tundra. Special attention will be placed on studying the response of littoral and deep-water chironomid assemblages to the past climatic variability and changes in duration of ice-covered period of lakes. Chironomid-based evidence of these changes will provide independent assessment of the climate impact on in-lake processes. Reconstructions of climatic changes in Arctic Yakutia over the past millennium will indicate whether recent climate change is unusual in the context of past variability. The obtained results will contribute to a spatial reconstruction of climate variability through time in Eurasia and may serve as background knowledge for future climate modeling. The proposed project will be realized in the Palaeoecology section, Universiteit Utrecht, Netherlands, and will be strongly interlinked with ongoing research at the host institution. The group is host to a number of multi-proxy palaeoclimatic and palaeoenvironmental investigations both on the Northern and Southern hemisphere. The applicant will be directly involved in training of researchers at the host institution in East Palaearctic chironomid analysis and in the interpretation of palaeoecological results from Siberian lakes developed by researchers at the host institution. This will guarantee a close interaction between the applicant and researchers at the host institution and will ensure a direct exchange of knowledge and scientific expertise.

Keywords: paleoclimate (climate change),climate variability (climate change),last millennium,palaeoecology,chironomids,fresh water ecosystems,sediments,hypolimnetic oxygen,ice cover,yakutia,arctic
Trimeric Bacterial Autotransporters (TRIMBAT)

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: Finland
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2007-2-1-IEF, 2007)
Start date: 2008-07-01
End date: 2010-06-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 172507.22
EU funding (EUR): 172507.22
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Bacterial adhesins play a crucial role in pathogen-host interactions, initiating infections by adhesion to the extracellular matrix and to cell surface proteins prior to invasion. A family of non-fimbrial adhesins, the trimeric autotransporter adhesins (TAAs), has recently been described in gram-negative pathogens. The common biological role of all these TAAs is to mediate the interaction of pathogenic bacteria with their hosts. There is an increasing body of evidence that TAAs represent highly important bacterial pathogenicity factors. Typically TAAs are long, fibrous proteins. They are constructed of a set of repetitive modules or domains that are combined in a fashion of building blocks to meet the individual needs of the pathogen. There is detailed structural and functional information for only a few TAA domains at present. The head domain structure of YadA from Yersinia enterocolitica was solved in Goldman group and motifs were identified that contribute to collagen binding. YadA is an autotransporter, with a globular head, a coiled coil stalk and a C-terminal membrane anchor/translocator. The aim of the proposed project is to: 1. Understand how the β-barrel translolates the passenger domain. 2. Understand the folding mechanism of the β-barrel. 3. Determine the structure of the YadA transmembrane domain in complex with with a collagen peptides.

Keywords: biochemistry,adhesins,autotransporter,outer membrane protein,crystallography,folding,yada
Post-enlargment MIgration, Integration and Education: Polish Immigrants in Scotland (POLISH IMMIGRANTS)

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-2007-2-1-IEF, 2007)
Start date: 2008-04-01
End date: 2010-06-30
Duration (months): 27.0
Total project cost (EUR): 128602.47
EU funding (EUR): 128602.47
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The project is tailored in order for researcher to develop a postdoctoral research agenda as well as to get more experience in multidisciplinary migration research. The host organisation will provide for the research fellow the opportunity to be trained in the topic of the education and language policy as well as human capital and quantitative research methods which is very much related with the research proposal and fellow interests. The research is designed to find out more about the recently arrived Polish population in Scotland, and in particular to explore the kinds of family and social networks that it has and the ways in which those networks support new migrants in the processes of working out a relationship between 'home' and the new setting of Scotland. The research will also explore the importance of language in maintaining and sustaining feelings of belonging to a 'home' community while located in a new space. The situation with Polish migrants in Scotland may be new because they are entering a space with very few minority population members and they may not be looking to 'settle' but to create an existence in which they are partly settled (through work and schooling) but remain culturally attached to the 'homeland', whose ways of doing things they keep alive in Scotland, and with which they are closely networked, through family connections, visits and communication. This 'in-between' identity creates new challenges to policy-makers in Scotland, and perhaps, especially to schooling, which is, in any case, not well equipped to respond to the specific needs of children of Polish origin. We want to see how Scottish schools, which are not used to large numbers of migrants, are responding to this new population. We want to find out about the relationships between schools and families, and we propose to ask family members, including pupils, about this. We will also interview education policy-makers and teachers about their attitudes and experiences

Keywords: sociology,educational sociology,immigration,migration,cultural capital,cultural reproduction,language maintenance,migrant families,migrant children,education,education policy
Microcrystallography of stabilized adrenergic receptors (BAR STRUCTURE)

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-2007-2-1-IEF, 2007)
Start date: 2009-01-01
End date: 2010-12-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 178874.06
EU funding (EUR): 178874.06
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Nowadays microfocus beamlines at intense and brilliant synchrotron radiation sources allow studies of samples with low X-ray scattering power to be curried out with new micro-methods. Structural information of excellent quality can be produced for proteins, which crystallize yielding only tiny crystals. The structure of recombinant rhodopsin obtained recently in host laboratory is an example of successful microcrystallography application. Several other membrane proteins from the GPCR family were studied in host laboratory for many years among them adrenergic receptors. Recently microcrystals of beta-adrenergic receptor were obtained in host laboratory and structure solution efforts were initiated. The corresponding strategy for structure solution of beta-adrenergic receptor is proposed here. New approaches to data collection from microcrystals including scanning microdiffraction and random data collection will be developed for successful structure determination. Application of micron and sub-micron beams for data collection will be assessed. Additionally, development of the software dedicated for reduction of data from microcrystals is suggested. Efforts in advancing microcrystallography will result in obtaining a high-resolution structure of beta-adrenergic receptor, which will help to rational drug design and will give new insights on GPCR signalling mechanism.

Keywords: natural sciences,structural biology,microcrystallography,gpcrs,beta-adrenergic receptor
Temporal regulation by Sonic Hedgehog of neural progenitor identity during vertebrate neurogenesis. (TEMPINTSHH)

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-2007-4-2-IIF, 2007)
Start date: 2008-08-12
End date: 2010-08-11
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 178874.06
EU funding (EUR): 178874.06
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The central nervous system (CNS) is the most complex organ in the vertebrate body, and the patterning of the developing CNS is comprised of a large number of regulatory steps. Many extracellular molecules play critical roles in the precise patterning of the CNS during embryonic development. Among them, Sonic Hedgehog (Shh), a soluble factor produced by the floor plate and notochord, is a strong candidate for the determination of the cell fates in the ventral neural tube. Shh has the characteristics of a “morphogen”- it functions at long range in a concentration dependent fashion to induce several different cell types. How Shh is perceived and interpreted by the receiving cells and consequently gives rise to diversity of cell fates has long been a central problem in neural development. In a recent study, the host laboratory have found that transcription factors of the Gli family are the intracellular mediators that transduce the concentration dependent aspect of Shh signaling; the data suggest that the transcriptional activity of Gli proteins are proportional to the concentration of Shh. However, the duration of Shh signaling also appears to contribute to the inducing activity of Shh. However how cells perceive and integrate the duration of Shh signaling as well as the concentration remains to be determined. To address this issue, this project will define the competence period of the neural progenitors for the Shh signaling and analyse how the temporal regulation of Shh signaling in the development of the ventral neural tube influences cell fate. To this end, we will take advantage of a combination of methodologies that use chick electroporation, time-dependent knock-out mice and zebrafish systems. The aim is to understand the mechanisms by which the competence of undifferentiated pluripotent neural cells to inductive cues is regulated and how progenitors acquire their distinct differentiated characteristics in response to the morphogen activity of Shh signaling.

Keywords: brain research,neurobiology,animal embryology,developmental biology,cell biology