Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Ve-Wa:Vegetation effects on water flow and mixing in high-latitude ecosystems–Capability of headwater catchments to mediate potential climate change (VEWA)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Earth system science
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (ERC-2013-StG, 2013)
Start date: 2013-10-01
End date: 2019-03-31
Duration (months): 66.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1500000.0
EU funding (EUR): 1500000.0
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

Our ability to predict consequences of climate change on the physical, chemical and biological characteristics of water resources in high-latitude uplands is a formidable challenge. These regions are highly sensitive to climate induced changes as small differences in temperature determine the status of frozen ground, the state of precipitation, and the magnitude and timing of snow accumulation and melt. Recent findings in mid-latitude regions suggest that there exist “two water worlds” – mobile water expressed in the stream and tightly bound water represented by plant water – which means that a substantial proportion of precipitation that infiltrates the soils becomes isolated from discharge to the streams, indicating that the composition of stream water alone is insufficient to understand routing and transit times of water in catchments. These findings challenge the core assumptions in our perceptual models of how we think biophysical systems work and how we make predictions of water partitioning of how inputs of water are evaporated, stored and reach the streams. High-latitude headwater catchments are characterised by lower evapotranspiration, consequent lower soil moisture deficits and different seasonality than mid-latitude sites. This interdisciplinary proposed project will address novel questions on vegetation-water linkages by using isotopic tracers in different waters as "fingerprints" across different spatial scales along a climate gradient as a precursor to understand future response to change in high-latitude upland catchments. The proposed project will – for the first time - examine the mechanisms of water storage, transmission and release and possible implications of climate change in high-latitude ecosystems along a cross-regional transect. Such geographically extensive comparison has never been conducted in these environments. This allows the consistency of processes and drivers to be assessed across broad spatial scales.

Keywords: isotope tracers
Self-sensing Curved composite panel under Operational load: methodology Platform for prediction of damage Event (SCOPE)

Framework: FP7 — Cooperation
Programme: Joint Technology Initiatives (Annex IV-SP1)
Theme: Public-private partnerships
Destination: Clean Sky
Action type: Article 171 of the Treaty
Partnership: CLEAN-SKY (Art-185)
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (SP1-JTI-CS-2012-03, 2012)
Start date: 2013-05-15
End date: 2015-05-14
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 400000.0
EU funding (EUR): 300000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

This proposal will develop SHM methodology platform, as outlined in JTI call JTI-CS-2012-3-GRA-01-051, for impact and damage detection in curved fuselage panels under real load conditions. The platform will be able to detect BIVID and VID on sensorised fuselage panels. Different SHM methodologies will be established based on piezoelectric transducers and Fibre Optic sensors. To allow for numerical simulation of impact events and wave propagation, non-linear Finite Element models will be developed using SMART Elements to run in parallel on High Performance Computing units. Moreover advanced Message Passing Interfaces will be utilised to cope with large size of data handling. The SCOPE platform will have the following features: SMART computational methodologies to accurately simulate sensing and actuating in real-time under real dynamic load conditions; Passive sensing methodologies by generating meta-models based on sensor signals to detect and identify various impact events which are likely to occur during service life of aircraft; Active sensing techniques based on Lamb wave and Electromechanical Impedance to detect and characterise damage; An optimisation algorithm resulting in optimum sensor layout (i.e. number and location) using sensor data from SMART FE simulations; A robust and reliable sensor system by utilising “SMART sensor” models with self-diagnostic properties to reduce the Probability of False Alarm; Full non-linear impact analysis incorporating damage models for advanced composite to identify damage development and propagation; Statistical analysis of the developed methodologies to result in a robust and reliable SHM platform; To set test procedures for collecting SHM data; Multiple impact data for impact identification; Validation and calibration of the developed methodologies.

Keywords: composite panel,ultrasonic guided wave,barely visible damage,impact
Systematic investigation of epistasis in molecular evolution (EINME)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Genetics,Genomics,Bioinformatics and Systems Biology
Countries involved: Spain
Call:  (ERC-2013-StG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-01-01
End date: 2018-12-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1461576.0
EU funding (EUR): 1461576.0
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

Why does a mutation have a deleterious effect when it occurs in one species but shows no apparent consequences on the phenotype when it occurs in another species? What are some of possible explanations on the molecular basis of this phenomenon? Are the computational predictions of the extent of this phenomenon in nature accurate? The present project aims to take a swing at answering, at least partially, these basic questions of epistasis in molecular evolution. Within our work we plan to address these issues using computational approaches, systematic fitness assays of engineered orthologous genotypes and experimental functional assays of specific cases of epistasis identified by evolutionary analysis. By tackling these goals and utilising this array of approaches the projects aims to create a synthesis between theory and experimentation under the confines of a single laboratory that will allow us to study this phenomenon in a systematic fashion on the interface of different fields and methodologies.

Keywords: molecular evolution,epistasis
Chaos in Parabolic Dynamics: Mixing, Rigidity, Spectra (CHAPARDYN)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Mathematical foundations
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (ERC-2013-StG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-01-01
End date: 2019-08-31
Duration (months): 68.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1193534.0
EU funding (EUR): 1193534.0
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

The theme of the proposal is the mathematical investigation of chaos (in particular ergodic and spectral properties) in parabolic dynamics, via analytic, geometric and probabilistic techniques. Parabolic dynamical systems are mathematical models of the many phenomena which display a "slow" form of chaotic evolution, in the sense that nearby trajectories diverge polynomially in time. In contrast with the hyperbolic case and with the elliptic case, there is no general theory which describes parabolic dynamical systems. Only few classical examples are well understood. The research plan aims at bridging this gap, by studying new classes of parabolic systems and unexplored properties of classical ones. More precisely, I propose to study parabolic flows beyond the algebraic set-up and infinite measure-preserving parabolic systems, both of which are very virgin fields of research, and to attack open conjectures and questions on fine chaotic properties, such as spectra and rigidity, for area-preserving flows. Moreover, connections between parabolic dynamics and respectively number theory, mathematical physics and probability will be explored. g New techniques, stemming from some recent breakthroughs in Teichmueller dynamics, spectral theory and infinite ergodic theory, will be developed. The proposed research will bring our knowledge significantly beyond the current state-of-the art, both in breadth and depth and will identify common features and mechanisms for chaos in parabolic systems. Understanding similar features and common geometric mechanisms responsible for mixing, rigidity and spectral properties of parabolic systems will provide important insight towards an universal theory of parabolic dynamics.

Keywords: ergodic theory,parabolic flows,teichmueller dynamics,translation surfaces,interval exchange transformations,infinite ergodic theory,spectral theory
Building body representations: An investigation of the formation and maintenance of body representations (BODYBUILDING)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: The Human Mind and its complexity
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (ERC-2013-StG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-02-01
End date: 2019-07-31
Duration (months): 66.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1497715.0
EU funding (EUR): 1497715.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The body is ubiquitous in perceptual experience and is central to our sense of self and personal identity. Disordered body representations are central to several serious psychiatric and neurological disorders. Thus, identifying factors which contribute to the formation and maintenance of body representations is crucial for understanding how body representation goes awry in disease, and how it might be corrected by potential novel therapeutic interventions. Several types of sensory signals provide information about the body, making the body the multisensory object, par excellence. Little is known, however, about how information from somatosensation and from vision is integrated to construct the rich body representations we all experience. This project fills this gap in current understanding by determining how the brain builds body representations (BODYBUILDING). A hierarchical model of body representation is proposed, providing a novel theoretical framework for understanding the diversity of body representations and how they interact. The key motivating hypothesis is that body representation is determined by the dialectic between two major cognitive processes. First, from the bottom-up, somatosensation represents the body surface as a mosaic of discrete receptive fields, which become progressively agglomerated into larger and larger units of organisation, a process I call fusion. Second, from the top-down, vision starts out depicting the body as an undifferentiated whole, which is progressively broken into smaller parts, a process I call segmentation. Thus, body representation operates from the bottom-up as a process of fusion of primitive elements into larger complexes, as well as from the top-down as a process of segmentation of an initially undifferentiated whole into more basic parts. This project uses a combination of psychophysical, electrophysiological, and neuroimaging methods to provide fundamental insight into how we come to represent our body.

Keywords: body representation,body image,multisensory,somatosensation,vision
Bio-Inspired Routes for Controlling the Structure and Properties of Materials: Reusing proven tricks on new materials. (BIONICS)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Materials and Synthesis
Countries involved: Israel
Call:  (ERC-2013-StG, 2013)
Start date: 2013-09-01
End date: 2019-08-31
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1500000.0
EU funding (EUR): 1500000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

In the course of biomineralization, organisms produce a large variety of functional biogenic crystals that exhibit fascinating mechanical, optical, magnetic and other characteristics. More specifically, when living organisms grow crystals they can effectively control polymorph selection as well as the crystal morphology, shape, and even atomic structure. Materials existing in nature have extraordinary and specific functions, yet the materials employed in nature are quite different from those engineers would select. I propose to emulate specific strategies used by organisms in forming structural biogenic crystals, and to apply these strategies biomimetically so as to form new structural materials with new properties and characteristics. This bio-inspired approach will involve the adoption of three specific biological strategies. We believe that this procedure will open up new ways to control the structure and properties of smart materials. The three bio-inspired strategies that we will utilize are: (i) to control the short-range order of amorphous materials, making it possible to predetermine the polymorph obtained when they transform from the amorphous to the succeeding crystalline phase; (ii) to control the morphology of single crystals of various functional materials so that they can have intricate and curved surfaces and yet maintain their single-crystal nature; (iii) to entrap organic molecules into single crystals of functional materials so as to tailor and manipulate their electronic structure. The proposed research has significant potential for opening up new routes for the formation of novel functional materials. Specifically, it will make it possible for us (1) to produce single, intricately shaped crystals without the need to etch, drill or polish; (2) to control the short-range order of amorphous materials and hence the polymorph of the successive crystalline phase; (3) to tune the band gap of semiconductors via incorporation of tailored bio-molecules.

Keywords: biomineralization,bio-inspired materials,short-range order
Information-optimal machine learning (SUBLRN)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Computer science and informatics
Countries involved: Israel
Call:  (ERC-2013-StG, 2013)
Start date: 2013-10-01
End date: 2018-09-30
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1453802.0
EU funding (EUR): 1453802.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The statistical and computational theory of learning is one of the prime achievements of computer science and engineering. This is evident both in terms of mathematical elegance of capturing intuitive notions rigorously as well as in terms of practical applicability: machine learning has effectively reshaped the way we use information. In this proposal we tackle the very basic notions of learning. Learning theory traditional focuses on statistics and computation. We propose to add information to the characterization of learning: namely the research question we address is: how much information is necessary to learn a certain concept efficiently? The crucial difference from classical learning theory is that traditionally statistical complexity was measured in terms of the number of examples needed to learn a concept. Our question is more finely grained: what if we are allowed to inspect only parts of a given example? Can we reduce the amount of information necessary to successfully learn important concepts? This question is fundamental in understanding learning in general and designing efficient learning algorithms in particular. We show how recent advancements in convex optimization for machine learning yields positive answers to some of the above questions: there exists cases in which much more efficient algorithms exist for learning practically important concepts. Our goal is to characterize learning from the viewpoint of the amount of information necessary to learn, to design new algorithms that access less information than current state-of-the-art and are consequently significantly more efficient. New answers for these fundamental questions will be a breakthrough in our understanding of learning at large with significant potential for impact on the field of machine learning and its applications.

Keywords: machine learning,sublinear optimization,sublinear algorithms,convex optimization
Urban Waves: evaluating structure vulnerability to tsunami and earthquakes (URBANWAVES)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Products and process engineering
Countries involved: United Kingdom,United Kingdom
Call:  (ERC-2013-StG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-01-01
End date: 2018-12-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1911315.0
EU funding (EUR): 1911315.0
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

Exposure to coastal floods across the world is forecast to increase to 150 million people and £20 trillion in assets by 2070 (>9% of projected annual global GDP). In addition to cities, potentially vulnerable assets include key infrastructure such as nuclear power plants and ports: the recent Japan earthquake and tsunami demonstrating this. Urban Waves will fill the gap in the engineering design and assessment of buildings in coastal areas subjected to onshore flow from tsunami preceded (or not) by earthquake ground shaking. In Aim 1 the unique experimental capability developed by the PI to reproduce flows on shorelines from tsunami will be used to provide information for fundamental research into tsunami flows onshore as well as the forces and pressures they exert on model buildings and coastal protection structures. In Aim 2 the experimentally measured force/pressure time-histories will be used to calibrate advanced finite element models of the structures that will then be used to further investigate the influence of bathymetry, topography, tsunami and structure characteristics on the structure forces/pressures. The study findings will be used to propose simplified relationships for tsunami forces/pressures suitable for inclusion in codes of practice (for buildings and coastal defences). In Aim 3, the FE models built will be used to generate fragility functions for buildings that can be used for the assessment of risk to urban areas. The first analytical tsunami fragility functions to be derived, these will also account for the effect of preceding earthquake ground shaking. These will also be compared to data collected after past tsunami events using advanced statistical methods. Urban Waves capitalises on the PI's recognised expertise in large-scale experiments, structural dynamics, analytical and empirical fragility function derivation and ability to carry out high quality multi-disciplinary research..
Cardiovascular Health effects of Air pollution in Andhra Pradesh, India (CHAI)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Diagnostic tools, therapies and public health
Countries involved: United Kingdom,Spain
Call:  (ERC-2013-StG, 2013)
Start date: 2015-01-01
End date: 2019-06-30
Duration (months): 54.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1200000.0
EU funding (EUR): 1200000.0
Participants: 3
Project status: CLOSED

While there is convincing evidence that exposure to particulate air pollution causes cardiovascular mortality and morbidity, nearly all of this evidence is based on populations in high-income countries where concentrations are relatively low. There is large uncertainty regarding the relationship between combustion particles and cardiovascular risk for concentrations higher than outdoor concentrations in urban areas of high-income countries and lower than active smoking. Exposures for our study population are likely to be in this range. We will investigate the cardiovascular health effects of exposure to particles from outdoor and household sources within a prospective cohort in Andhra Pradesh, India. Firstly, we will characterise exposure of participants using an integrated approach utilising outdoor mobile monitoring, personal monitoring, and questionnaire data. We will then collect data on participants’ activities and location using ‘life-logging’ from which activities driving exposure can be identified. Finally, we will quantify the association between exposure to particles and biomarkers of atherosclerosis. This research will shed light on the relationship between particles and cardiovascular risk at concentration ranges where there is the largest uncertainty. It will provide some of the first evidence of the cardiovascular health effects of medium-term exposure to particulate air pollution outside of a high-income country. The research will also provide evidence regarding the relative contribution of sources and activities linked to high exposure, forming the basis of recommendations for exposure reduction.

Keywords: air pollution,exposure sciences,cohort study,india
Robust Codes from Higher Dimesional Expanders (COHOMCODES)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Computer science and informatics
Countries involved: Israel
Call:  (ERC-2013-StG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-02-01
End date: 2020-05-31
Duration (months): 76.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1302000.0
EU funding (EUR): 1302000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Error correcting codes play a fundamental role in computer science. Good codes are codes with rate and distance that are asymptotically optimal. Some of the most successful good codes are constructed using expander graphs. In recent years a new notion of {\em robust} error correcting codes, known as locally testable codes (LTCs), has emerged. Locally testable codes are codes in which a proximity of a vector to an error correcting code can be achieved by probing the vector in {\em constant} many locations (independent of its length). LTCs are at the heart of Probabilistically Checkable Proofs (PCPs) and their construction has been sought since the discovery of the PCP theorem in the early 1990s. Despite 20 years of research, it is still widely open whether good locally testable codes exist. LTCs present completely new challenge to the field of error correcting codes. In the old paradigm a random code is a good code and the main focus was to construct explicit codes that imitate the random code. However, a random code is not an LTC. Thus, contrary to traditional codes, there are no natural candidates for LTCs. The known constructions of robust codes are ad hoc, and there is a lack of theory that explains their existence. The goal of the current research plan is to harness the emerging field of higher dimensional expanders and their topological properties for a systematic study of robust error correcting codes. Higher dimensional expanders are natural candidates for obtaining robust codes since they offer a strong form of redundancy that is essential for robustness. Such form of redundancy is lacking by their one dimensional analogue (i.e., expander graphs). Hence, the known expander codes are not robust. We expect that our study will draw new connections between error correcting codes, high dimensional expanders, topology and probability that will shed new light on these fields, and in particular, will advance the constructing of good and robust codes.

Keywords: error correcting codes,expander graphs,expander codes,higher dimensional expanders,ldpc codes,symmetric codes,locally testable codes,locally decodeable codes,combinatorial expansion,pcps