Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Mechanisms of Human Neuronal Development and Functional Integration in Neural Network (HND)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: International Outgoing Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: France
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2010-IOF, 2010)
Start date: 2011-05-01
End date: 2015-06-30
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 232676.8
EU funding (EUR): 232676.8
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Despite the exponentially growing burden that neurodevelopment or neurodegenerative diseases represent in public health, the therapies are mostly inexistent or very limited. Intensive fundamental research on the biological mechanisms of neurological disorders is strongly needed to discover and validate pharmacological treatments. At the same time, there is a pressing need for treatment that would compensate the loss of neurons occurring in a multitude of neurological disorders. Rare clinical trials have promoted the feasibility of stem cell-based therapy in the human brain. However, when significant, the benefits of the treatment were transient, and did not completely stop the progression of the disease. Unfortunately, the physiological causes of success or failure of the grafts remain unclear. It seems thus crucial to develop new human experimental models to resolve those issues. In this context, the HND proposal is guided by the objective to study the key mechanisms of human neuronal development and more precisely to clarify how human neural progenitors may functionally integrate neural networks. To reach this aim, I will have to achieve the following specific objectives: 1) Developing human experimental neuron-based models, and 2) Developing new strategies to insure the appropriate maturation, integration, function and fate of neural progenitors. The HND project will be performed on neural cell culture obtained from human tissue, by using state-of-the-art genetic reprogramming techniques. The originality of the proposal is to combine several cutting-edge genetic and physiological technologies to approach the topic at cellular and neural network levels in living tissue. The outcomes of the project will be particularly important to research aiming to identify the biological mechanisms underlying neurological pathologies and validate pharmacological treatments, as well as to restorative cell therapies.

Keywords: neurosciences,induced pluripotent stem cells,neurophysiology,genetic,optogenetic,two-photon microscopy,electrophysiology,human neuron-based models,medical research
Probing the early Universe with GRB afterglows (TK-GRB-10)

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-2010-IEF, 2010)
Start date: 2011-06-01
End date: 2013-05-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 219590.4
EU funding (EUR): 219590.4
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are cosmic, stellar explosions, that emit a typical amount of energy of 10^51 erg in gamma-rays on short time scales of 0.1 to 100 seconds. The prompt emission in gamma-rays is followed by a longer-lasting afterglow, which can be detected in all wavelength ranges from radio, optical, to X- and gamma-rays up to several days after the explosion. The large energy release and high luminosity of GRBs and their afterglows make them ideal probes for studying the early Universe and the cosmic evolution. Furthermore, GRBs are linked to the death of massive stars, and hence to star formation in the very early evolution of the Universe. GRBs light up distant galaxies undergoing a process of star formation, which would remain undetected otherwise. The main aim of this proposal is to provide training for the applicant via cutting edge research in one of the most exciting and active fields in astronomy at a world leading institute, the Dark Cosmology Centre at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen. The proposal is based on three training and research aims. One of the major science aspects is to work and be trained on optical afterglow spectroscopy with the newly commissioned X-shooter instrument at the VLT. An X-shooter spectrum of a GRB afterglow is a powerful diagnostic of the chemical conditions in the local environment and the interstellar material of the host galaxies of GRBs. The second aspect is based on multi-wavelength studies of GRB afterglows using ground- and space-based observatories. The aim is to constrain the dust content and the total metal column density along the line of sight towards the burst. The third aspect are investigations about the population of GRB host galaxies. The proposed project can constrain properties of low-mass, star-forming galaxies in the early Universe, which are the most common galaxies but difficult to find with different strategies; a GRB pinpoints their location.

Keywords: physical sciences,astronomy,astrophysics,gamma-ray bursts,grb afterglows
ACTive flow control for aeroengine turbine efficiency increase in REAL stage conditions (ACTREAL)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: International Outgoing Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Italy
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2010-IOF, 2010)
Start date: 2011-06-15
End date: 2015-06-14
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 230084.8
EU funding (EUR): 230084.8
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

ACTREAL aims to deliver aerodynamics research enabling aeroengine turbine efficiency increase in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The aerodynamic loss in low-pressure turbines are largely accountable to flow separation in cruise conditions, the situation being more critical with nowadays ultra-high-lift blade design trends, hence increasing fuel consumption rates, thus emissions. Active flow control is a promising technology to suppress separation thus reducing losses, which has been demonstrated effective but still some open questions hamper its industrial application in turbomachinery. This project aims to contribute to the likelihood of extensive adoption by considering real machine effects on flow active control which have not been yet investigated. The main objective of the project is to verify the effectiveness of active flow control and optimize control parameters for UHL LPT efficiency increase in real stage environment. Real machine effects must be estimated as rotor-stator interaction, radial cascade, proper periodicity and compressibility through experimental campaign -in the third country organization linear cascade wind tunnel- supported by numerical simulations by computational fluid dynamics tools. In facing this, assessment of numerical and experimental methodologies suitable for active control is carried out. Deep knowledge of fluid dynamics mechanisms of separation control in this environment are pursued by experiments and high accuracy numerical simulations as Large-Eddy-Simulation. A preliminary study of a feasible mechanical technology to engineer active control without the use of electronic equipmenta will be undertaken. The contribution to EU scientific and technological knowledge and researcher training will be enhanced by taking advantage from the large experience and outcomes attained by the third-country organization in the field of active control applied to turbomachinery.

Keywords: turbo-machinery (aero-engine technologies),modelling tools,computational fluid dynamics,experimental,active flow control,ultra high lift low pressure turbine,real machine effects
Prediction in Speech Perception and Spoken Word Recognition (PSPSWR)

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: Spain
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2010-IIF, 2010)
Start date: 2011-06-01
End date: 2013-05-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 174380.8
EU funding (EUR): 174380.8
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The apparent ease with which we comprehend spoken language is remarkable; however, despite over a half-century of intensive research spanning a range of intellectual disciplines, the cognitive mechanisms and neurobiological bases that underlie this ability remain poorly understood. Recent advances in adjacent domains of cognitive neuroscience (e.g., scene analysis and object recognition in vision, limbic and motoric control, etc.), as well as a reappreciation for Bayesian approaches to perception have rekindled the interest in the extent to which our higher-order knowledge of the world shapes our perceptual experiences. The fundamental aim of this proposal is to investigate how and when listeners use information about phonetic and lexical patterns in their language to generate predictions of what they are to hear next. The proposed research combines several inter-disciplinary techniques (experimental psychology, cognitive neuroscience), permitting a focus on the time course of when such knowledge becomes available and is exploited by the listener. Here, the relatively rare linguistic phenomenon of long-distance sibilant harmony in Basque (an understudied linguistic isolate) is the test case in a paradigm of behavioral and electrophysiological (EEG/MEG) experiments investigating how listeners carve up the noisy, incoming acoustic signal using what they know about the linguistic patterns in their language. The advanced imaging facilities at the Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language (BCBL), combined with its location in the Basque Country and the concentration of experts in the Basque language, make it an optimal location to carry out the research proposed within this application.

Keywords: neurolinguistics,phonology,language sciences,cognitive science,psycholinguistics,experimental psychology
Towards microRNA modulators by fragment-based drug discovery (FBDD) approaches (MICRORNA FBDD)

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-2010-IEF, 2010)
Start date: 2011-03-01
End date: 2013-02-28
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 200049.6
EU funding (EUR): 200049.6
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

MicroRNAs have been identified as important endogenous regulators of gene function. Aberrant regulation of them has been linked to various human diseases. Small molecule intervention has the potential to provide a new therapeutic strategy. The aim of the project is the identification of selective microRNA modulators by fragment-based drug discovery (FBDD) approaches. MicroRNAs are short ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecules, on average only 22 nucleotides long that act as post-transcriptional regulators by binding to complementary sequences in the three prime untranslated regions (3`UTRs) of target messenger RNA transcripts (mRNAs), usually resulting in efficient sequence-specific gene silencing, which is referred to as RNA interference (RNAi). The numerous reports indicating a role of microRNAs in connection with diseases such as diabetes, neurological disorders, and cancer raises the question whether microRNA could be targeted in the development of a novel therapeutic strategy. Fragment-based drug discovery (FBDD) methods have been developed for finding lead compounds as part of the drug discovery process. The approach is based on identifying small molecules (with a molecular weight less than 250 Da and so called fragments), which generally bind only weakly to the biological target, and then iteratively elaborating them to produce successively more potent compounds. The target microRNA will be microRNA-122, which plays a key role in hepatitis C virus infection, microRNA-155, an inducer of pancreatic cancer by suppressing the expression of cell-cycle protein p53 and let-7 microRNA, which has been shown to control the timing of development of nematode Caenorhabditis elegans from the last larval stage to adulthood. Detailed binding studies will be done by NMR spectroscopy. In conclusion the druggability of microRNA will be proved.

Keywords: natural sciences,fragment-based drug discovery (fbdd),microrna drug target,small molecule microrna modulators,epigenetics,nmr spectroscopy
How to involve the European citizenry in European politics? Emotions, media discourse, and mobilisation. (ENGAGING EU CITIZENS)

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: Germany
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2010-IEF, 2010)
Start date: 2012-01-01
End date: 2016-05-28
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 162163.2
EU funding (EUR): 162163.2
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The research project sets out to describe the mechanism that explains how political entrepreneurs created mass mobilisations by engaging European citizens against Haider's FPÖ, against the Bolkestein directive, and against Turkish membership. The lack of citizen participation is often assumed to be the main problem of democracy at the European level. The recent mass mobilisations are puzzling, as not much has changed in the circumstances that were thought to cause the apathy of citizens towards European politics. Contrary to the actor- and structure-centred accounts found in the European integration literature, this research project focuses on the activating quality of emotionally-loaded media discourse by incorporating insights from media effect theory and collective action theory. While it is known how citizens become politically engaged with national politics, the peculiarity of multi-level European decision-making, and, especially, the profoundly different political opportunity structure for mobilisation on European issues need to be taken into account. Knowledge on the necessary circumstances for engaging citizens with European politics is elicited by comparing three issues with high levels of mobilisation to three similar issues with low levels of mobilisation. Media discourse and citizens' political behaviour in Germany, France and Switzerland is analysed via a qualitative and quantitative content analysis and by consulting social movement databases. The non-EU Switzerland serves as a validity check. Subsequently, an experiment with a pre-test/post-test design is held to test the main independent variables related to emotionally-loaded media discourse, while controlling for the relevant intervening variables. By disclosing whether politicisation is the prerogative of Eurosceptics, or may lead to the kind of contestation beneficial to democratic politics, this interdisciplinary project will disclose the prospects for civic participation in European politics.

Keywords: political sciences,societal behaviour,media studies,european integration,democratic theory
Global Alternatives for an Interconnected Arctic (GAIA)

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-2010-IIF, 2010)
Start date: 2012-05-15
End date: 2013-12-14
Duration (months): 19.0
Total project cost (EUR): 223038.33
EU funding (EUR): 223038.33
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

In the wake of climate change and new geopolitical conditions, the Arctic is of great interest to states, not just as a region of competition and cooperation but as one that forces a fundamental reconceptualization of how the modern state system categorizes the world. It is simultaneously a place of land, water, and ice; seen as empty yet containing a vibrant indigenous population; an inaccessible region where Europe, Asia, and North America nonetheless meet. These contradictions create challenges for the peoples and states that wish to govern the region. This project extends past research in order to build foundations for governance in the Arctic. Having gathered information about how policymakers and other actors view the Arctic through two phases of interviews in the circumpolar North, I will gain further insight by classifying governance proposals for the region and discussing these proposals directly with the group(s) that made them. That is, I will specifically examine proposed institutions, legal instruments, and agreements that are devoted to cooperation among national governments, and how support for one or another of these governance arrangements builds on perceptions of the Arctic’s material environment. I will then follow up with interviews in which I inquire further into why respondents support a particular proposal, and code both proposals and justifications in parallel databases to identify correlations. This research, to be carried out at Royal Holloway, U. of London, will be in collaboration with Prof Klaus Dodds, an expert in polar governance. Together, we intend to forge a nexus between academic communities and policymakers in Europe and North America, sharing ideas and theories with relevant parties. Because regional change is creating a challenging policy environment for the EU, it is imperative that Europe gain a better understanding of the driving forces behind specific groups’ positions and the implications of various policy options.

Keywords: geopolitics,nordic studies,economic geography,historical geography,environmental law,international law,law of the sea,public law,international relations,science and society,eskimo studi
The role of altered monocyte activity in the long-term potential of peritoneal dialysis as a therapy (ROAMINPD)

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-2010-IIF, 2010)
Start date: 2011-08-01
End date: 2013-07-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 210092.8
EU funding (EUR): 210092.8
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Recurrent infection remains the major reason for treatment failure in patients treated for renal failure with peritoneal dialysis (PD). The underlying hypothesis of this study is that modification of peritoneal monocyte/macrophage biology by PD alters tissue homeostasis, susceptibility to infection and the development of immunity to re-infection, compromising the long-term potential of peritoneal dialysis as a therapy. In spite of their role in peritoneal host defence and tissue homeostasis, the immunobiology of peritoneal macrophages remains poorly understood. Peritoneal monocytic cells derived from PD patients are depleted throughout the course of PD and exhibit increasing signs of immaturity with reduced capacity to respond to LPS compared to peripheral blood monocytes and a propensity to spontaneous activation in vitro. It has been suggested that these cells are polarised in their immune responsiveness towards an anti-inflammatory phenotype. Our broad experience of mouse models has highlighted extensive macrophage heterogeneity and has established a broad gene expression database. We aim to: 1. complete the first systematic and detailed study of the impact of peritoneal dialysis on the monocyte/macrophage system, including the identification of corresponding cellular subsets between mouse models and human. 2. assess the impact of this altered cell biology on functional responses of PD monocytic cells to infectious challenge, the regulation of immunity and tissue damage. Our combined experience and novel datasets mean that we will develop a detailed understanding of the functional alterations in the monocyte/macrophage-lineage and the impacts these have on susceptibility to infection and treatment failure. A better mechanistic characterisation of changes in peritoneal monocytes may translate into novel therapeutic interventions that will have direct application for improving outcomes in PD patients and the potential for long-term PD treatment.

Keywords: immunology,infections,nephrology,chronic diseases
Attitudinal change in troubled times: A triangulation strategy (TRIANGULATE)

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,Spain
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2012-CIG, 2012)
Start date: 2013-01-01
End date: 2015-12-31
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 75000.0
EU funding (EUR): 75000.0
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

Comparative political behaviour research studies the impact of individual and contextual characteristics on citizens’ political attitudes and behaviour. Typically, researchers use cross-national survey data and country-level data to examine how economic, political, or institutional contexts affect the outcomes of interest. However, conventional identification strategies suffer from omitted variable and reverse causation problems, which hinder the ability of researchers to assess causal claims. To help overcome these problems, this project will develop, apply, and disseminate a novel triangulation strategy that combines three methodologies: a) The analysis of cross-national survey data to establish external validity b) The design of original survey experiments to assess the internal validity, i.e. if there is a cause and effect relationship between the variables c) The use of case studies to trace mechanisms The triangulation strategy will be applied to study how three contextual features that are very relevant in the current European environment generate attitudinal change: a) The effect of income inequality on pro-social attitudes b) The effect of an economic depression on attitudes towards democracy c) The effect of electoral procedures and voter turnout on governmental legitimacy One main aim is to promote the use of multi-method approaches and experiments in European political behaviour research. To achieve this, the project foresees the collection of original experimental data, the organization of at least two academic dissemination activities, and the organization of courses on survey experiment design. The substantive results are of interest to the general public. The project will disseminate them through a website, the write-up of a general audience book, and through several newspaper articles reviewing academic and historic evidence on the impact of inequality and an economic crisis on citizens' attitudes.

Keywords: s109 political systems - legitimacy of governance,s107 transformation of societies - democratization - social movements