Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Non classical rarefaction shock-waves in molecularly complex vapours (NSHOCK)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Products and Processes Engineering
Countries involved: Italy
Call:  (ERC-2013-CoG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-03-01
End date: 2019-02-28
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1485600.0
EU funding (EUR): 1485600.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The expansion of a dilute gas through a gasdynamics convergent-divergent nozzle can occur in three different regimes, depending on the inlet and discharge conditions and on the gas: via a fully subsonic expansion, via a subsonic-supersonic or via a subsonic-supersonic-subsonic expansion embedding a compression shock wave within the divergent portion of the nozzle. I devised an exact solution procedure for computing nozzle flows of real gases, which allowed me to discover that in molecularly complex fluids eighteen additional different flow configurations are possible, each including multiple compression classical shocks as well as non classical rarefaction ones. Modern thermodynamic models indicate that these exotic regimes can possibly occur in nozzle flows of molecularly complex fluids such as hydrocarbons, siloxanes or perfluorocarbons operating close to the liquid-vapour saturation curve and critical point. The experimental observation of one only of these eighteen flow configurations would be sufficient to prove for the first time that non classical gasdynamics phenomena are indeed possible in the vapour region of a fluid with high molecular complexity To this purpose, a modification to the blow-down wind tunnel for dense gases at Politecnico di Milano is proposed to use mixtures of siloxane fluids. Measurements are complemented by numerical simulations of the expected flow field and by state-of-the-art uncertainty quantification techniques. The distinctive feature of the proposed experiment is the adoption of mixture of siloxanes as working fluids. Mixtures of siloxanes are well known to exhibit an higher stability limit than their pure components, due to the redistribution process occurring at high temperature. The increased understanding of real-gas dynamics will enable to improve the design of Organic Rankine Cycle Engines, to be used in small scale energy production from biomasses, binary geothermal systems and concentrating solar thermal power plants.

Keywords: shock waves,molecularly complex fluids,non classical gasdynamics,compressible flows,nozzle flows,organic rankine cycle
Lifespan Development of Typical and Atypical Multisensory Perception (MULTISENSE)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: The Human Mind and its Complexity
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (ERC-2013-CoG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-10-01
End date: 2019-11-30
Duration (months): 62.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1314131.0
EU funding (EUR): 1314131.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Daily life confronts us with information across multiple senses in parallel and we must somehow unite these sensations into a coherent interpretation of the world. MULTISENSE will explain how the human brain comes to develop this complex ability, and how certain genetically ‘pre-marked’ brains can come to experience multisensory integration in remarkable ways. Implicit associations across the senses can have a profound and sometimes surprising effect on our experiences (eg, the taste of food can be altered simply by changing its colour, its shape, or even its name). People with the neurological condition synaesthesia have cross-sensory interactions to an extreme degree (eg, they might experience tastes as colourful moving shapes in the visual field). Synaesthesia can give profound insights into normal perception because all people experience crossed sensations to an implicit degree, and often in ways that mimic synaesthetes (eg, rougher textures tend to be ‘seen’ as darker colours by synaesthetes, and are also paired to darker colours by nonsynaesthetes in sensory matching tasks). In this ambitious proposal I will examine the life-span development of multisensory integration in both synaesthetes and nonsynaesthetes, considering changes that occur throughout childhood, non-elderly adulthood, and older age. My project will unfold over 48 months across 4 inter-related Work Programmes, in which I will develop a state-of-the-art assessment tool to identify child synaesthetes, and use cognitive tests and experimental techniques to evaluate multisensory functions in synaesthetes and nonsynaesthetes across the lifespan. My questions stand at the frontier of our scientific understanding, and will develop an embryonic field of childhood synaesthesia research, and forge a wholly novel field in synaesthesia and aging. My findings will be fed back to both researchers and educational policy makers, and will frame this field for current and future academics.

Keywords: synaesthesia,multisensory integration,cross-modality,perception,cognition,development
Tumour Heterogeneity and Somatic Evolution of Unstable cancer genomes (THESEUS)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Physiology, Pathophysiology and Endocrinology
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (ERC-2013-CoG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-06-01
End date: 2019-05-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1999940.7
EU funding (EUR): 1999940.7
Participants: 3
Project status: CLOSED

Summary The majority of metastastic solid tumours remain incurable. In-depth analysis of tumour genomes is revealing evidence for branched evolution and cancer subclonal spatial and temporal intratumour heterogeneity (ITH). Drivers of ITH such as chromosomal instability (CIN) are associated with drug resistance and poor clinical outcome. However, despite increasing knowledge of tumour diversity, there is limited insight into the mechanisms driving genomic instability and ITH or the processes that shape cancer genome evolution over time and space. Many animal tumour models fail to recapitulate patterns of genomic instability witnessed in human tumours, limiting insight into the forces that shape tumour evolution in vivo. We have found evidence for parallel subclonal evolution, resulting in the same gene or signal transduction pathway being subject to distinct inactivating or activating somatic events in different regions of the same tumour (Gerlinger NEJM 2012). These data suggest that in-depth analysis of tumour evolution may help define routes through which tumours must progress, offering opportunities for novel therapeutic approaches. We will develop new animal models of ITH, by developing knock-out strains for two suppressors of replication stress and CIN, recently identified in our laboratory (Burrell Nature 2013). These models will be used to study cancer evolution in order to decipher the impact of selection pressures, such as DNA damaging agents and cancer cytotoxics, on genomic complexity and diversity in emergent resistant subclones. In addition, through combined cancer informatics and functional genomics approaches we aim to identify novel mechanisms driving tumour heterogeneity and biological processes that permit the propagation of heterogeneous cells using novel transposon based approaches. Developments in this proposal may lead to new insight into the two forces underpinning cancer evolution and therapeutic failure, diversity and selection

Keywords: tumour evolution,mouse models,intratumour heterogeneity,drug resistance
Language-Processing by Overlapping Predictions: A Predictive Coding Approach (L-POP)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: The Human Mind and its Complexity
Countries involved: Germany
Call:  (ERC-2013-CoG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-07-01
End date: 2019-06-30
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1552740.0
EU funding (EUR): 1552740.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

This project aims at elucidating fundamental neural computations underlying language processing. While we have gained enormous insights into the localization of language in the brain and the temporal sequence of language processes (e.g., syntactic vs. semantic), we know very little about the actual computations underlying language processing. I propose that the framework of predictive coding can fill this gap. Predictive coding is a fundamental theory of sensory processing in the brain that has recently gained enormous attention in psychology and neuroscience. While models of language assume a bottom-up driven processing stream from sensory areas through different linguistic processing stages (e.g., phonetic, syntactic) towards semantic interpretation, predictive coding postulates that high-level brain systems actively construct models of the external world and pass resulting predictions about upcoming events to lower sensory systems. Only if predictions are violated, a prediction error is signalled in a bottom-up fashion to higher areas where internal models are adjusted to minimize prediction error. Here, I postulate that language-processing is the result of multiple overlapping predictions from different sources of linguistic information, if available. I propose a research program that (a) explores the presence of neurophysiological markers of predictive coding during language processing, (b) tests quantitative hypotheses from predictive coding concerning strength and precision of prediction error signals, for established language effects, and (c) explores the domain generality of identified mechanisms. To this end, established electrophysiological and brain activation markers of sentence processing will be combined with advanced model-based data analysis tools. Finally, a comprehensive functional architecture of language shall be established that incorporates dynamically reconfigurable feedforward and feedback information flow in the language system.

Keywords: language processing,sentence processing,predictive coding,eeg,event-related brain potentials (erps),functional magnetic resonance imaging (fmri)
Systems Medical Diagnostics by In-vivo Ambient Mass Spectrometric Profiling of Tissue Lipidome (MASSLIP)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Physical and Analytical Chemical Sciences
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (ERC-2013-CoG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-06-01
End date: 2019-05-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1997663.2
EU funding (EUR): 1997663.2
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The objective of the proposal is the development of ambient mass spectrometric methods for the characterisation of mucosal metabolome and lipidome. While recent advent of ambient MS provided new means for in-situ and imaging analyses and led to the development of real-time, in-vivo MS characterisation of tissues, there are no methods available for minimally invasive testing of mucosal surfaces including the associated microflora. Human mucosa-associated microbiome (with special emphasis on the gastrointestinal microbiota) has been recently demonstrated to play a key role in the pathogenesis of localised (cancer, chronic inflammatory disease) and systemic (hypertension, diabetes, obesity) conditions. While the microbiota interacts with the host mostly via production of a variety of metabolites, currently there is no method available for the in-situ metabolic profiling of mucosa. The envisioned methods will presumably fill this gap, by providing a technique for the diagnosis of a wide range of diseases ranging from acute infections through cancer to dysbiotic conditions of the microflora leading to chronic illnesses. In the current proposal we put forward the development of different ambient ionisation setups utilising Jet Desorption Ionisation, Sonic Spray Ionisation and Rapid Evaporation Ionisation MS covering a broad range of invasiveness. We plan to combine the methods with standard endoscopic tools and develop the concept of ´chemically aware´ or intelligent endoscopic device capable of the unambiguous identification of pathological conditions of the mucosa. Since the metabolic profile-based identification approach requires large authentic datasets, we plan to create both histopathological and bacterial spectral databases with histological and 16SrRNA-based validation. The proposal also comprises the development of novel multivariate statistical analysis workflows and data fusion algorithms allowing rapid and accurate identification using multimodal MS datasets.
Algorithms for coping with uncertainty and intractability (ACUITY)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Computer Science and Informatics
Countries involved: Netherlands
Call:  (ERC-2013-CoG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-05-01
End date: 2019-12-31
Duration (months): 68.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1519285.0
EU funding (EUR): 1519285.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The two biggest challenges in solving practical optimization problems are computational intractability, and the presence of uncertainty: most problems are either NP-hard, or have incomplete input data which makes an exact computation impossible. Recently, there has been a huge progress in our understanding of intractability, based on spectacular algorithmic and lower bound techniques. For several problems, especially those with only local constraints, we can design optimum approximation algorithms that are provably the best possible. However, typical optimization problems usually involve complex global constraints and are much less understood. The situation is even worse for coping with uncertainty. Most of the algorithms are based on ad-hoc techniques and there is no deeper understanding of what makes various problems easy or hard. This proposal describes several new directions, together with concrete intermediate goals, that will break important new ground in the theory of approximation and online algorithms. The particular directions we consider are (i) extend the primal dual method to systematically design online algorithms, (ii) build a structural theory of online problems based on work functions, (iii) develop new tools to use the power of strong convex relaxations and (iv) design new algorithmic approaches based on non-constructive proof techniques. The proposed research is at the cutting edge of algorithm design, and builds upon the recent success of the PI in resolving several longstanding questions in these areas. Any progress is likely to be a significant contribution to theoretical computer science and combinatorial optimization.
Long non-coding RNAs of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes as novel anti-cancer therapeutic targets (FIGHT-CANCER)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Diagnostic Tools, Therapies and Public Health
Countries involved: Italy
Call:  (ERC-2013-CoG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-04-01
End date: 2019-03-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1998000.0
EU funding (EUR): 1998000.0
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

Although tumor tissues can be infiltrated by T cells specific for tumor antigens, the effector functions of these lymphocytes are generally suppressed by CD4+ regulatory T cells (Tregs). Since tumor infiltrating Tregs can display function heterogeneity, depending on both the tumor type and the inflammatory milieu, only inhibition of the right Treg activity should result in the unleash of an effective anti-tumor T cell responses. Experimental plan: To identify the Tregs that truly inhibit anti-tumor T cells, we will profile by RNA-Seq the transcriptome of Tregs infiltrating both tumor and healthy tissues. In particular, we will focus on LncRNAs and the gene networks they modulate, since they have recently emerged as relevant epigenetic regulators of cell differentiation and identity. We will exploit this new knowledge to create a panel of regulatory transcripts, which will be assessed at single cell level on tumor infiltrating Tregs, so to determine the association of specific transcripts with different Treg populations. Since downregulation of specific lncRNAs might be an efficient way to inhibit the “unwanted” Tregs at tumor sites, we aim at targeting lncRNAs uniquely expressed in these Tregs and propose to develop AsiCs, chimeric molecules composed by an aptamer, single stranded oligonucleotides that bind to cell surface markers, and a siRNA, short RNAs downregulating specific lncRNAs. Deliverables and conclusions: this proposal will provide new knowledge on tumor infiltrating Tregs possibly allowing definition of molecular signatures of Tregs with either positive or negative effects on antitumor T cell responses. Moreover, we will develop new molecules that specifically target lncRNAs of interest and that will help identifying new antitumor therapeutic targets. In conclusion, the possibility to modulate Tregs effector functions may not only offer new anti-tumor therapy but more in general may be relevant to any immunomodulatory therapeutic strategies.

Keywords: long-non coding rnas,cd4+ treg cells,tumor infiltrating lymphocytes,aptamers,next generation sequencing,single cell analysis
TITANIUM DIOXIDE – THE SILENT KILLER: FINDING THE RELEVANT BIOLOGICAL TARGET FOR EXPOSURE CHARACTERIZATION AND RISK ASSESSMENT OF NANOPARTICLES TOXICITY IN FISH MODEL (FISHTIO2)

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-2013-CIG, 2013)
Start date: 2013-09-01
End date: 2017-08-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The nano-ecotoxicological research is supported and promoted by European Commission. In 2005, the Action Plan “Nanosciences and nanotechnologies: An Action Plan for Europe 2005–2009” was adopted (European Commission, 2004). The European Commission clearly states the need for the new scientific experiments that will provide quantitative data on toxicology and ecotoxicology and allow for the risk assessments to be carried out on nanomaterials. In year 2006 the Chemicals Committee of the OECD has formed special Working Party on Manufactured Nanomaterials [WPMN]. One of the nanomaterials included in the OECD WPMN priority list is titanium dioxide (TiO2). Titanium dioxide nanoparticles (nano-TiO2) present the biggest ecotoxicological concern due to the rapid increase of anthropogenic input into the environment. Estimated environmental concentrations of nano-TiO2 in water range from 0.7 to 24.5 ng/mL. CURRENT AQUATIC EXOTOXICOLOGY TESTING OF NANO-TIO2 ARE NOT SUFFICIENT FOR THE RISK ASSESSMENT, as the testing is done by exposing the aquatic organisms to water suspension of nano-TiO2. Although the nano-TiO2 can be absorbed by the gills and skin of aquatic animals, the absorbed amount is insignificant compared to the potential of uptake through diet. Based on our previous research (Jovanovic et al., 2011, Jovanovic & Palic , 2012) we have classified nano-TiO2 as a potent immunotoxin, and there have been no previous studies that have investigated synergistic effects of nano-TiO2 during co-exposure to pathogenic bacteria. Therefore, we propose to use multidisciplinary approach by combining immunology assays, bacterial challenge studies, gross pathology of the brain, kidney and liver, and next generation deep gene sequencing - in order to determine toxicological effects and relevant biological targets upon acute exposure to nano-TiO2 through diet. Such study will provide regulatory agencies with long-time sought relevant ecotoxicological data for performing the risk assessment

Keywords: v307 environmental toxicology,nanotoxicology,fish,titanium dioxide water pollution,environmental risk assessment of nanomaterials,l808 environmental toxicology,l601 innate immunity
Integrated response of plant, microbial and N Cycling InTEractions to precipitation patterns (INCITE)

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: France
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-CIG, 2013)
Start date: 2013-08-01
End date: 2017-07-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Increased frequency and intensity of extreme climatic events are predicted in Europe, including severe droughts and intense precipitation events. Such changes will influence plant physiology, soil microbial activity and nutrient cycling, inducing changes in ecosystem functioning, with expected consequences on productivity, soil functions and carbon balance. Thus, an improved mechanistic comprehension of ecosystem responses to altered precipitation patterns is required to adequately assess responses to future climatic conditions, within a research framework that can address couplings between biogeochemical cycles by integrating all players associated in plant-soil microbial-nitrogen cycling interactions. The effects of contrasting precipitation patterns will be addressed in an integrated, multidisciplinary approach combining state-of-the-art molecular microbiology techniques with stable isotopes approaches and biogeochemical methods. The overall goal is to understand the temporal and spatial couplings between i) precipitation patterns, ii) the structure and activity of the soil microbial community and soil nitrogen fluxes, and iii) plant water and nitrogen uptake, and how these couplings affect the stability of ecosystems functions. The proposed work will i) investigate which active microbial groups are most involved in the response of the plant-microbial system to precipitation patterns, ii) carry out temporally resolved investigations of precipitation patterns impacts on the outcome of plant-microbial competition for nitrogen and the coupling between plant water uptake depth and soil microbial activity, iii) assess the coupling between the stability of soil microbial community and of major functions that it performs, in response to altered precipitation patterns, enabling valuable insight into the future implications of changes in European summer climate for soil nitrogen availability, and providing crucial information for the development of mitigation strategies.

Keywords: ecology,biogeochemistry,biogeochemical cycles,microbiology,ecosystem functioning