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Description: 3D Tune-In brings together relevant stakeholders: the SME digital games industry (Reactify, Vianet, XTeam and Nerlaska);
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: The classification of Fano manifolds is a long-standing and important open problem. Fano manifolds are basic building blocks in geometry: they are `atomic pieces' of mathematical shapes. We will take a radically new approach to Fano classification, combining Mirror Symmetry (a circle of ideas which originated in string theory) with new methods in geometry and massively-parallel computational algebra.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: The objective of my project is to develop new methods to transform environmentally persistent hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and hydrofluoroolefins (HFOs), into reactive chemical building blocks that can be used in chemical manufacture. My team will achieve this by developing a series of new chemical reactions that transform inert carbon–fluorine bonds in HFCs or HFOs into reactive carbon–boron or carbon–aluminum bonds. My team will show that these reactive species can be used to construct carbon–carbon bonds. The idea is to develop a net series of reactions that results in the fixation of fluorine from low-value, volatile, and environmentally damaging organic molecules to high-value, non-volatile organic molecules. When successful, this approach should open up new routes that allow the chemical industry to repurpose HFCs and HFOs as chemical intermediates, and not end products, that complements European Union legislation. By the end of this project, my team will have pioneered methods for the production of agrochemicals and pharmaceuticals from environmentally persistent fluorocarbons.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: The aim of the fellowship is to pioneer a synthetic method to form carbon–carbon bonds from the coupling of two carbon–fluorine bonds. This method will result in new routes to fluorinated biaryls, organic molecules that are used in materials science or as the active ingredient in pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals. It will open up new pathways to using inexpensive and environmentally persistent fluorocarbons in synthesis.
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Group: Projects completed before 1 January 2021
Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: More and more, organizations are generating huge amounts of data, which need to be stored and processed in order to gain useful insights and achieve competitive advantage. While the storage and analysis are nowadays mostly carried out by computers, the interpretation of data is still performed by humans through visual means.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: The aim of the project is to develop a geometrically meaningful framework that allows generalizing deep learning paradigms to data on non-Euclidean domains. Such geometric data are becoming increasingly important in a variety of fields including computer graphics and vision, sensor networks, biomedicine, genomics, and computational social sciences. Existing methodologies for dealing with geometric data are limited, and a paradigm shift is needed to achieve quantitatively and qualitatively better results.
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CountryCode: UK
Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: Prenatal diagnosis of congenital abnormalities and intrauterine growth restriction (IGR) has become increasingly important thanks to the recent advancements in obstetrical ultrasound (US) imaging. An accurate and early diagnosis of fetal malformations and growth anomalies can improve fetal prognosis by allowing a treatment plan to be produced, enabling access to specialist units and appropriate treatments from birth. However, the diagnostic accuracy of US is limited due to its subjective assessment and inter-operator variability. On the other hand, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has the potential to offer a more detailed examination of the fetus. Unfortunately, its high cost, limited availability, and the difficulty in acquiring high quality 3D data due to constant fetal motion, hinder the widespread use of fetal MRI.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: 'Modern astrophysics has pushed the observational frontier to a time a billion years after the Big Bang. Lying beyond this frontier is the period when the first stars and galaxies formed, whose light heated and ionized the Universe in the process known as reionization. Understanding this 'epoch of reionization' would fill in a key missing period in our picture of the history of the Universe. Existing observational techniques have scratched the surface, but new observational techniques are required to truly understand this early period of galaxy formation. My work will lay the theoretical foundations for three novel probes of this period - 21 cm tomography, the 21 cm global signal, and line intensity mapping - that would enable three dimensional maps of the epoch of reionization. If realized through challenging radio-frequency observations, these techniques would transform our understanding of the first galaxies.
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Group: Projects completed before 1 January 2021
Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: Emerging serverless computing technologies, such as function-as-a-service (FaaS) offerings, enable developers to virtualize the internal logic of an application, simplifying management of cloud native applications and allowing cost savings through billing and scaling at the level of individual function calls. Serverless computing is therefore rapidly shifting the attention of software vendors to the problem of developing cloud applications that can use these platforms.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: In the project of Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellowship, I will design a versatile molecular platform that is used to construct multifunctional amphiphiles, which co-assemble with amphiphilic gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) to form monodisperse and stable targeting drug delivery vesicles. By incorporating multiple targeting ligands and multiple hydrophilic and hydrophobic drugs, I aim to discover efficient vesicle formulation with increased targeting selectivity and potent cytotoxicity to tumor cells. The route of the targeted drug delivery will be followed spontaneously via transiting surface plasmon resonance of AuNPs, and the impact of the targeted drug delivery on the targeted tumor cells will be monitored in real time by live cell Raman micro-spectroscopy. Furthermore, any targeting ligand, hydrophilic and hydrophobic drug can be easily tuned for a variety of different targeted tumour cells.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: The goal of this proposal is to search for an entirely new kind of matter. This type of matter called a sterile neutrino doesn’t
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: This programme of work will advance the understanding of the combined effects of factors that cause poor lung function, respiratory disability and the development of COPD . This will be achieved by examination of determinants of lung growth and lung function decline within existing cohorts that cover the whole life course, and which have followed, in detail, the respiratory health status of over 25000 European children and adults from the early 1990’s to the present day. Following a comprehensive programme of risk factor identification we will generate a predictive risk score. The programme includes 1) identification of behavioural, environmental, occupational, nutritional, other modifiable lifestyle, genetic determinant of poor lung growth, excess lung function decline and occurrence of low lung function, respiratory disability and COPD within existing child and adult cohorts 2) generation of new data to fill gaps in knowledge on pre-conception and transgenerational determinants and risk factors 3) validation of the role of risk factors by integration of data from relevant disciplines, integration of data from the cohort-related population-based biobanks and exploitation of appropriate statistical techniques 4) generation of information on change in DNA methylation patterns to identify epigenetic changes associated with both disease development and exposure to specific risk factors 5) generation of a predictive risk score for individual risk stratification that takes account of the combined effects of factors that cause poor lung growth, lung function decline, respiratory disability, and COPD and 6) implementation of an online interactive tool for personalised risk prediction based which will be disseminated freely and widely to the population, patients and health care providers. The work will provide an evidence base for risk identification at individual and population level that can underpin future preventive and therapeutic strategies and policies.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: Background: Coping with ever-changing conditions is a problem common to most living things. One solution that organisms have come up with is the evolution of systems that allow them to sense and respond to their surroundings. Despite being usually complex and costly to maintain, sensing devices are widespread throughout the Tree of Life, which has puzzled researchers for years. Theory has identified a number of scenarios that promote the emergence of environmental sensing systems. Yet, most aspects of their origin and evolution remain obscure; largely due to the practical difficulties of observing these processes in real time. Here I propose to fill this gap by combining experimental evolution with the Host Group's expertise on the molecular regulation of bacterial behaviour. Methodology: The plan is to couple sudden changes in growth conditions with arbitrary environmental cues (e.g., toxic metals) to select for bacteria capable of reading these cues and altering their behaviour accordingly. I will target a well-studied behaviour: motility, which plays a key role in nature allowing bacteria to find good conditions and move away from threats. Using this setting, I will test decades-long hypotheses about the genetic and ecological factors that shape the emergence of novel sensing systems. Later, I will exploit the power of new DNA sequencing techniques to work out how genetic changes drive the new behaviours. Impact: This research will shed light on how readily novel sensing systems can evolve, thus contributing to efforts to understand pressing issues such as the emergence of multi-drug resistance pathogens or the response of natural populations to the current global change. Outcomes could also help in the design of novel antimicrobial drugs and microbe-based reporters with applications in bioremediation (e.g., detection of contaminants), biotechnology (e.g. monitoring of industrial processes) and in Public Health (e.g., detection of pathogens in water supplies).
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: Children’s health affects the future of Europe – children are citizens, future workers, parents and carers. Children are dependent on society to provide effective health services (UN Convention on the Rights of the Child). Models of child primary health care vary widely across Europe based on two broad alternatives (primary care paediatricians or generic family doctors), and a variety of models of school health and adolescent direct access services.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: The rapid increase in demand for data-intensive applications capable of exploiting Big Data technologies such as Hadoop/MapReduce, NoSQL, cloud-based storage, and stream processing is creating massive growth opportunities for European independent software vendors (ISVs). However, developing software that meets the high-quality standards expected for business-critical cloud applications remains a barrier to this market for many small and medium ISVs, which often lack resources and expertise for advanced quality engineering.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: HIV-1 is responsible for a global pandemic of 35 million people, and continues to spread at a rate of >2 million new infections/year. It is widely acknowledged that a protective vaccine would be the most effective means to reduce HIV-1 spread and ultimately eliminate the pandemic, while a therapeutic vaccine may help mitigate the clinical course of disease and lead to strategies of viral eradication. However despite 30 years of research, we do not have a vaccine capable of protecting from HIV-1 infection or impacting on disease progression. This in part represents the challenge of identifying immunogens and vaccine modalities with reduced risk of failure in late stage development. To overcome this bottleneck some of the most competitive research groups in vaccine discovery from European public institutions and biotechs from 9 EU countries together with top Australian and Canadian groups and US collaborators, have agreed to join forces in EAVI, providing a pool of international expertise at the highest level. EAVI2020 will provide a platform for the discovery and selection of several new, diverse and novel preventive and/or therapeutic vaccine candidates for HIV/AIDS. Emphasis will be placed on early rapid, iterative, small Experimental medicine (EM) human vaccine studies to select and refine the best immunogens, adjuvants, vectors, homologous and heterologous prime–boost schedules, and determine the impact of host factors such as gender and genetics. Animal models will be used to complement human studies, and to select novel immunization technologies to be advanced to the clinic. To shift the “risk curve” in product development we will develop innovative risk prediction methods, specifically designed to reduce the risk associated with late stage preventive or therapeutic vaccine failure, increasing the chance of discovery of an effective vaccine.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: Due to an aging population and the spiralling cost of brain disease in Europe and beyond, EDEN2020 aims to develop the gold standard for one-stop diagnosis and minimally invasive treatment in neurosurgery. Supported by a clear business case, it will exploit the unique track record of leading research institutions and key industrial players in the field of surgical robotics to overcome the current technological barriers that stand in the way of real clinical impact.
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Group: Projects completed before 1 January 2021
Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: The typical lifetime of an industrial process plant is between 30 and 50 years. Technologies to enhance the operation and optimization of process plants can both guide the development of new state-of-the-art process plants and, perhaps more pertinently, can ensure that the large installed base of existing plants operates efficiently. The PRONTO Consortium partners are strongly convinced that for Europe to stay competitive, the overriding challenge is the efficient and sustainable operation of assets already installed and running at the present time.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: Mathematical, computational models are central in biomedical and biological systems engineering; models enable (i) mechanistically justifying experimental results via current knowledge and (ii) generating new testable hypotheses or novel intervention methods.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: Mechanical forces are fundamental to cardiovascular development and physiology. The interactions between mechanical forces and endothelial cells are mediated by mechanotransduction feedback loops. My lab is interested in understanding how hemodynamic forces modulate cardiovascular function and morphogenesis. Overall, our recent work is unraveling the biological links between mechanical forces, mechanotransduction and endothelial cell responses. The heart beats 2.6 billion times in a human lifetime and heart valves are amongst the most mechanically challenged structures of the body. The cardiac valves are made of endocardial cells (EdCs) and extracellular matrix components. Most valve diseases have their origins in embryogenesis, either as signs of abnormal developmental processes or the aberrant re-expression of fetal gene programs normally quiescent in adulthood.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: South Asians, who represent one-quarter of the world’s population, are at high risk of type-2 diabetes (T2D). Intensive lifestyle modification (healthy diet and physical activity) is effective at preventing T2D amongst South Asians with impaired glucose tolerance, but this approach is limited by high-cost, poor scalability and low impact on T2D burden.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: In SORCERER revolutionary lightweight electrical energy storing composite materials for future electric and hybrid-electric aircraft are to be developed. Building on previous research novel lightweight supercapacitor composites, structural battery and structural energy generating composite materials are to be realised for aeronautical application and demonstrated on the systems level. Such demonstration ranges from table-top demonstrators for structural batteries and energy harvesting materials to aircraft component demonstrators for structural supercapacitors.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: Accurate and reliable simulations of weather, ocean and climate require computational models that result from structure-preserving – e.g. mass or energy conserving – discretizations of the equations of geophysical fluid dynamics (GFD). This research project aims to derive, implement and evaluate various structure-preserving discretizations (of different order of accuracy) of the nonlinear shallow-water equations, which are suitable for weather/ocean/climate applications. The derivations will rely on a novel form of covariant equations of GFD that I have formulated using Differential Geometry, in which the equations are split into metric-free (topological) and metric-dependent parts. Based on the systematic discretization I have introduced for the split linear shallow-water equations, this project intends to extend this approach also to the split nonlinear case and to derive structure-preserving discretizations that preserve in the discrete case, too, the splitting into topological and metric terms. As the topological terms require less mathematical structure, we expect an advantage in terms of easiness of discretization and efficiency of implementation.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: I aim to transform the way disease is currently detected through innovations in the design of nanoparticle-based biosensors that can be used to detect a number of diseases with global implications. The three most significant challenges facing biosensing are inaccuracy, insensitivity, and low-throughput detection. One technique that is capable of facing these challenges is Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS) which has demonstrated potential for extreme sensitivity (single molecule detection) and rapid, multiple-analyte detection within complex mixtures. Early stage diagnosis of disease requires the detection of trace amounts of analyte in multi-component biological samples (blood, urine, saliva). It is therefore particularly important for sensors to reach the single-molecule detection limit. Further, the ability to analyse biological samples without separation or other treatment steps is a crucial advantage of SERS.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) are one of the most promising technologies to produce electricity in a clean and efficient way. However, their practical application is still limited by detrimental degradation during operation as a consequence of convoluted chemical, mechanical and microstructural deterioration processes, occurring especially at the anode when hydrocarbon fuels are used. This project aims to assess the electrode microstructural degradation through a combined experimental/modelling approach consisting of accelerated ageing tests, impedance spectroscopy analysis, tomographic reconstruction of samples, particle-based algorithms and electrochemical model simulations. Infiltrated cermet anodes are considered in the study, due to their well-defined microstructure that allows them to be, at the same time, a good model platform to assess the microstructural evolution and a high performing alternative for SOFC applications. The synergic integration of experimental activities, microstructural characterization and model simulations is expected to identify and quantify the underlying mechanisms of microstructural degradation (e.g., particle coarsening and agglomeration) and to suggest strategies to enhance the durability of infiltrated electrodes (for example, by adding a controlled amount of ceramic nanoparticles to limit the coarsening of metallic particles within the electrode). The project, combining the researcher's expertise in microstructural and electrochemical modelling with the competences in testing and tomographic characterization at the host institution, is expected to be a pillar in the researcher's academic career while significantly contributing to boost the European excellence in a cutting-edge and multidisciplinary topic such as the fabrication and characterization of efficient and durable solid oxide fuel cells.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: Smouldering megafires are the largest and longest-burning fires on Earth. They destroy essential peatland ecosystems, and are responsible for 15% of annual global greenhouse gas emissions. This is the same amount attributed to the whole of the European Union, and yet it is not accounted for in global carbon budgets. Peat fires also induce surges of respiratory emergencies in the population and disrupt shipping and aviation routes for long periods, weeks even months. The ambition of HAZE is to advance the science and create the technology that will reduce the burden of smouldering fires. Despite their importance, we do not understand how smouldering fires ignite, spread or extinguish, which impedes the development of any successful mitigation strategy. Megafires are routinely fought across the globe with techniques that were developed for flaming fires, and are thus ineffective for smouldering. Moreover, the burning of deep peat affects older soil carbon that has not been part of the active carbon cycle for centuries to millennia, and thus creates a positive feedback to the climate system. HAZE wants to turn the challenges faced by smouldering research into opportunities and has the following three novel aims:
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: The objective of the BEACON project is to (re-)introduce analog communications into the design of modern wireless networks. We argue that the extreme energy and latency constraints imposed by the emerging Internet of Everything (IoE) paradigm can only be met within a hybrid digital-analog communications framework. Current network architectures separate source and channel coding, orthogonalize users, and employ long block-length digital source and channel codes, which are either suboptimal or not applicable under the aforementioned constraints. BEACON questions these well-established design principles, and proposes to replace them with a hybrid digital-analog communications framework, which will meet the required energy and latency constraints while simplifying the encoding and decoding processes. BEACON pushes the performance of the IoE to its theoretical limits by i) exploiting signal correlations that are abundant in IoE applications, given the foreseen density of deployed sensing devices, ii) taking into account the limited and stochastic nature of energy availability due to, for example, energy harvesting capabilities, iii) using feedback resources to improve the end-to-end signal distortion, and iv) deriving novel converse results to identify fundamental performance benchmarks.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: Trailing-edge flows arise in many technological applications, such as aircraft wings in aeronautics and mixing devices in chemical engineering. Two important and fundamental processes take place near the trailing edge, namely the acoustic radiation and receptivity, which refer to generation of sound by fluctuations within the flows and excitations of instability waves by ambient disturbances, respectively. This project will investigate (a) generation of instability waves in the wake as free-stream acoustic and vortical disturbances impinge on the trailing edge; (b) radiation of sound when Tollmien-Schlichting (T-S) waves in the upstream boundary layer propagate through and interact with the trailing-edge flow. Both processes will be analysed mathematically by developing a Local Scattering Theory, which we recently proposed as an appropriate framework for describing the coupling of distinct characteristic motions in a region of strong inhomogenuity. Furthermore, with radiation and receptivity being described properly, we will move on to investigate the so-called acoustic feedback loops, in which instability waves and acoustic waves are generated from each other, leading to self-sustained oscillations. First-principle theories will be developed to predict the intensities as well as the tones (frequencies) of the oscillations. As receptivity, acoustic radiation and acoustic feedback loops are fundamental processes closely related to drag on the wing, jet and airframe noise and mixing of reactants, the present project is of high practical relevance. From the methodology point of view, this project will combine sophisticated asymptotic methods with highly accurate numerical computations, enabling us to tackle a greater range of complex problems, for which numerical or analytical method alone would be inadequate.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: Introduction
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: In this project we aim to develop the theory to underpin the optimal design of metamaterial devices. We will test the theory by building a metamaterial cloak which surpasses current models in its combination of elastic wave protection and cloaking capacities at frequency band much larger (~1 kHz).
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: Nanogap electrodes have been a highly attractive research area for over 25 years. This is mainly due to their potential for realising next generation nanodevices and circuit elements with lower power consumption, faster speed, and higher level of integration, as well as investigating the fundamental properties of materials at the nano- or even molecular level. However, the lack of a facile, inexpensive, high throughput technique for the manufacturing of dissimilar nanogap electrodes has hindered their commercial and scientific exploitation.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: “SOUTHERNCHANGE” aims to improve our understanding of the biogeochemical cycling of trace elements and mineral dust in the western Southern Atlantic Ocean (SAO). We will establish the to date first high-resolution record of past and present atmospheric deposition fluxes for the Falkland Islands covering the entire Holocene (12 ky to date).
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: DNA replication is an essential process for genome duplication, cell division and ultimately organismal survival that ensures faithful transmission of the genome to progeny. Certain genomic loci represent major obstacles to DNA replication including fragile sites, G-rich tracts and repetitive sequences, such as ribosomal DNA and telomeres. Mammalian telomeres have the propensity to adopt complex DNA secondary structures, including telomere-loops and telomeric G-quadruplex DNA, which are believed to play essential roles in telomere maintenance. However, recent work has established that these structures are also a hindrance to DNA replication and failure to stabilise, repair or restart the replication fork is a potential source of genome instability, the hallmark of many diseases including cancer.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: This project aims at understanding the effects of radiative transfer on air pollution dispersion in urban areas at both the street scale and the neighbourhood scale. Numerical models will be developed, for that purpose, that will help design and manage our cities, buildings and traffic systems in order to produce sustainable, safer, healthier, and more comfortable urban environments.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: In this project, I propose to characterize the influence of SteD, an effector of a globally important bacterial pathogen Salmonella enterica, on T cell development, and its potential therapeutic application. In the mouse model of S. enterica infection, the onset of the specific immune responses is delayed significantly in comparison to other bacterial pathogens. Recent work by the group of Prof. Holden, who is the supervisor of this project, a world leader in the field of Salmonella pathogenesis and the Director of the MRC Centre for Molecular Bacteriology and Infection (MRC-CMBI) at Imperial College London, identified SteD, an effector of the Type III Secretion System (T3SS) encoded by Salmonella pathogenicity island 2 (SPI-2), as the first example of a virulence factor that reduces surface-localised mature Major Histocompatibility Complex class II (MHCII) levels in Dendritic Cells. In addition, I have found an increased activation of T cells following infection of C57BL/6 mice with S. enterica serovar Typhimurium (STm) ΔsteD mutant in comparison to wild-type STm, thereby showing that SteD is an important modulator of adaptive immunity in vivo. SteD and/or its gene have a high chance of having therapeutic application. I also have obtained preliminary evidence indicating that SteD has additional functions in the manipulation of antigen-presenting cells. Therefore, I propose to use both the acute and chronic mouse models of Salmonella infection to further characterize the influence of SteD on T cell development. Furthermore, I will investigate the mechanistic and physiological significance of natural variation in the amino acid sequence of SteD among a broad range of S. enterica serovars, including the typhoid fever-causing human-adapted serovars Typhi and Paratyphi. Finally, I will explore the possible use of SteD in new formulations of DNA vaccines. These studies will provide important knowledge for the clinical application of this newly described T3SS effector.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: Bacterial type VI secretion systems (T6SSs) are recently discovered nanomachines used to inject effectors into prokaryotic or eukaryotic cells. Therefore, T6SSs are involved in both inter-bacterial competition and bacterial pathogenesis. In this project, I propose to study the T6SS of Pseudomonas putida a soil bacterium with the capacity to colonise the root of crop plants. The colonisation by this bacterium provides growth advantages to the plant and, importantly, protection against plant-pathogens. This makes P. putida a relevant biocontrol agent. Since T6SS is mainly used by environmental bacteria for inter-bacterial competition, one might speculate that T6SSs play a relevant role in the biocontrol properties of P. putida. An in silico analysis of P. putida KT2440 genome revealed the existence of three putative T6SSs: H1, H2 and H3. I have determined that H1-T6SS is active and can be used to kill the serious phytopathogen Pseudomonas syringae. Mutants in H1-T6SS structural components lack the ability to kill model prey strains. In this project, I propose to use these mutants in competition assays with several microorganisms to further identify H1-T6SS targets, especially other resilient phytopathogens such as Agrobacterium tumefaciens and Ralstonia solanacearum. Furthermore, I will assess the role of T6SSs in the biocontrol properties of P. putida using infected plants. Moreover, I have identified novel H1-T6SSs effectors and their cognate immunity proteins (EI pairs) which belong to EI families without functionally characterised members. I will characterise the identified EI pairs at a functional, biochemical and structural biology level.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: 3D-GATED will focus on the utilisation of graphene in a unique and precise way, in combination with functional materials such as MoS2 and MoSe2 to address the specific demands of the sustainable energy sector, focussing on electrode development for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Specifically, 3D-GATED will synthesise, optimise, and translate to a functional device; custom designed free-standing 3D graphene architectures through chemical vapour deposition (CVD) on complex Cu constructs. 3D-GATED addresses the need for reproducibility, low gravimetric density, and long range conduction in electrochemical device electrodes. This will be achieved through a convergence of research progress; improvements in selective laser melting (SLM) of Cu; CVD of graphene on Cu; delamination of graphene from Cu; and doping of graphene with functional materials.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: Human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) are a promising cell source for regenerative therapies. In part, their capacity for multi-lineage differentiation and subsequent therapeutic efficacy is controlled by the epigenetic status of the DNA. The Stevens Group at Imperial College London (ICL) has recently developed a novel material platform of porous silicon (pSi) nanoneedles (nNs) that penetrate the cell membrane, stimulating physical changes in the nucleus. Interestingly, nuclear mechanics and shape parameters have been shown to control epigenetic status in various cell types, but this remains under-investigated in hMSC. Therefore, in the present study, pSi nNs will be used to manipulate hMSC nuclear size and shape, as well as the resulting epigenetic status, as a means to identify novel mechanisms for enhancing differentiation capacity. The inherent porosity of the nNs, coupled with their ability for cell penetration, will be exploited as a delivery tool for a cutting-edge class of non-coding RNAs into hMSCs to interfere with, and further regulate, epigenetic status and resulting therapeutic potential. This discovery-driven project leverages a one-of-a-kind engineering tool for investigating and manipulating hMSC behaviour. In parallel, the applicant has proposed to undergo a secondment to a UK-based, non-academic partner organisation to enhance his knowledge of intellectual property protection, technology development, and product commercialisation in order to translate his research findings for clinical benefit. The applicant will increase his knowledge base during the project, creating new contacts in his personal network, as well as for the Stevens Group and ICL. This project represents a multidisciplinary, cutting-edge approach to stem cell biology and biomedical engineering, utilising cross-sectoral collaboration for enhanced training and potential for industrial translation of basic research findings.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: As a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow, I will develop and demonstrate remote-activated delivery of biological therapeutics loaded into an injectable hydrogel, where delivery is triggered by applying near-infrared (NIR) light that safely and non-invasively penetrates deep into living tissues. The hydrogel carrier will be designed to deliver and stabilize cell-derived exosomes and microvesicles, together referred to as extracellular vesicles (EVs), which have recently gained attention for their ability to effectively deliver biological information and cargo directly to target cells. Developing sophisticated delivery systems for EVs will streamline their translation to clinical application, enabling the huge potential for this novel biological therapeutic to be fully realized. This system will be advantageous in simultaneously providing localized delivery, enhanced EV stability, and crucially, externally triggered release. This project will provide the first demonstration of localized and controlled delivery of EVs, with the added novelty of an externally NIR-triggered delivery system. By combining my expertise in designer hydrogel chemistry, the supervision of Prof. Molly Stevens at Imperial College London (ICL) who runs a world-class interdisciplinary biomaterials-focused group, and a secondment with The Technology Partnership (TTP) specializing in technology translation, this project is ideally situated to deliver the highest quality results.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: Recently, researchers have developed a new framework for decomposing the information that is shared by a number of variables, which characterizes public information that is shared by all the variables and private information that is contained only in specific elements. The main contribution of this work has been to distinguish between redundant and synergistic interdependencies: the former corresponds to variables that share the same information, while the latter refers to information sharing modes where the statistical dependency exists within the whole but not between the parts.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: The candidate proposes to investigate certain highly symmetric finite partial linear spaces using methods from combinatorics and group theory. A partial linear space consists of a set of points and a set of subsets of points called lines for which each pair of points lies on at most one line, and each line contains at least two points. Both linear spaces and simple undirected graphs are examples of partial linear spaces. For a class of graphs X, a graph G is X-homogeneous if any isomorphism between induced subgraphs of G that are isomorphic to a member of X can be lifted to an automorphism of the entire graph. This definition can naturally be extended to partial linear spaces for any class of partial linear spaces X. The candidate has two long-term research goals. The first is to understand X-homogeneous partial linear spaces S where X is the class of connected partial linear spaces (possibly with bounded size). This leads to two main research objectives. Objective 1 is to focus on the case when S is not a graph or a linear space, where nothing is yet known. Objective 2 is to continue her work on the case when S is a graph and the members of X have bounded size. The second long-term goal of the candidate is to understand partial linear spaces admitting automorphism groups of low rank, which again leads to two main research objectives. Objective 3 is to complete the classification of the primitive permutation groups of rank at most 5. Objective 4 is to use this classification to investigate certain partial linear spaces with rank 4 automorphism groups. These four objectives will enhance the expertise of the mathematical community. They will also lay the foundations for a future programme of research for the candidate and enable her to obtain a permanent academic position.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: Are financial markets informationally efficient? Are some economic agents more informed than others? What is the impact of such heterogeneity on asset prices? These questions, of great economic significance, have permeated academic and business circles over the last few decades. Despite significant progress on the theoretical and empirical fronts relatively little is known about how information is endogenously acquired and processed in markets by agents with differential access to information and facing heterogeneous opportunities.
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Group: Projects completed before 1 January 2021
Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: 'The dramatic differentials in healthy ageing, quality of life and life expectancy between individuals of different socioeconomic groups, is a major societal challenge facing Europe. The overarching aim of the LIFEPATH project is to understand the determinants of diverging ageing pathways among individuals belonging to different socio-economic groups. This will be achieved via an original study design that integrates social science approaches with biology (including molecular epidemiology), using existing population cohorts and omics measurements (particularly epigenomics). The specific objectives of the project are: (a) To show that healthy ageing is an achievable goal for society, as it is already experienced by individuals of high socio-economic status (SES); (b) To improve the understanding of the mechanisms through which healthy ageing pathways diverge by SES, by investigating lifecourse biological pathways using omic technologies; (c) To examine the consequences of the current economic recession on health and the biology of ageing (and the consequent increase in social inequalities); (d) To provide updated, relevant and innovative evidence for healthy ageing policies (particularly “health in all policies”) that address social disparities in ageing and the social determinants of health, using both observational studies as well as an experimental approach based on the existing 'conditional cash transfer' experiment in New York.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: The overall aim of LoCoMaTech is, in the first place, to enable the novel HFQ® process, (patented by ICL) in its latest most advanced form, which includes 10 recently patented refining technologies (TRL4), to be used for the manufacture of lightweight, high strength body and chassis structures and components for low-cost vehicles, by establishing a prototype, full scale pilot production line (TRL6), supported by a supply chain ranging from raw material to end of life. This will be the first low-cost technology in the world enabling manufacture of high-strength lightweight complex-shaped aluminium parts and low environmental impact. The 1st generation of HFQ technology has already been commercially used in manufacturing 4 types of niche vehicles. This project aims at bringing the materials and manufacturing cost significantly down, through introducing newly patented technological measures, by which the technology could be used for producing low-cost vehicles. The low-cost HFQ® technology will be used first for mass production of aluminium car body and chassis structures (eventually for all vehicles), which will lead to substantial improvement in energy efficiency, performance and travel range of low-end vehicles. LoCoMaTech will construct a world first low-cost HFQ® aluminium production line (prototype), targeting reduction of energy consumption per vehicle by 15.3-22%, and cost-effective weight savings from 8.55 to 2.16 €/kg-saved and improvement of LCA environmental impact by 15.39-26.8%. LoCoMaTech plans to assist in creating 53 commercial production lines and 1700 jobs, in year 6 from the completion of the project. The potential market for low-cost HFQ® technology for passenger cars alone is over €160 billion pa, and double this, if buses, trucks, trains and aircraft are considered. This will create huge wealth for Europe and place European automotive industry in a world leading position for lightweight manufacturing technologies for low-end vehicle production.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: The management of febrile patients is one of the most common and important problems facing healthcare providers. Distinction between bacterial infections and trivial viral infection on clinical grounds is unreliable, and as a result innumerable patients worldwide undergo hospitalization, invasive investigation and are treated with antibiotics for presumed bacterial infection when, in fact, they are suffering from self-resolving viral infection.
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Group: Projects completed before 1 January 2021
Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: Serotonergic hallucinogens (sHG), such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), rank among the most controversially discussed agents of modern neuropsychopharmacology. They are popular drugs of abuse, scientifically are used to study the pathophysiology of psychosis, can pose a threat to health, but most recently also re-gained attention as promotors of psychotherapy. The controversy at hand remains unresolved by modern science and politics, and the European Research Area is faced with the imminent challenge to come up with a strong and competitive scientific basis that is able to elucidate how these drugs work and how their working potentially translates into benefit and/or detriment to European health and society.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: As a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow, I will develop, characterize, and determine the efficacy of a biomaterial platform to target pathologic fibrosis and promote tissue repair following myocardial infarction (MI). I have an ideal background and will perform well in this project based on my expertise in extracellular matrix (ECM) derived biomaterials, characterizing the immune response to biomaterials, and evaluating in vivo outcomes. The proposed system will consist of a protein fragment tethered to an injectable hydrogel. The hydrogel carrier will be composed of ECM, which has been shown to facilitate tissue repair processes by local modulation of immune cell phenotype . The cryptic protein fragment, recently isolated and recombinantly produced by the Stevens Group , has gained attention for its ability to regulate the onset of fibrosis by interfacing with cells to abrogate the release of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs). No therapies currently exist to prevent or mitigate fibrosis. Developing a sophisticated delivery system for a cryptic protein fragment will enable the broad potential of targeting pathologic fibrosis to be realized. This system will be advantageous in simultaneously providing localized delivery, combined immunomodulatory and regulatory properties of the ECM and recombinant protein fragment, and sustained release of the protein fragment during degradation of the ECM hydrogel. The combination of my expertise (in ECM hydrogels, characterizing the host response to biomaterials, and translating technologies) and Prof Molly Stevens’s supervision and world-class interdisciplinary biomaterials-focused group, the 2014 Research Group of the Year (European Life Science Awards), at Imperial College London (ICL), together make this project ideally suited for success.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: The STOP project will bring together a range of key health and food sector actors to generate scientifically sound and policy-relevant evidence on the factors that have contributed to the spread of childhood obesity in European Countries and on the effects of alternative policy options available to address the problem. This evidence will complement, systematise and partly reframe the findings of an established body of prior research by leveraging the latest scientific findings. The STOP project will translate the evidence gathered and generated into:
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CountryCode: UK
Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: This project is an exploration of the essence of chaos. Chaos and chaotic systems are by their very nature unpredictable. Paradoxically, the manner in which systems transition into chaotic regimes is highly structured and rigid. This contradiction can be explained mathematically through an elegant process called renormalization. Renormalization is like a microscope which can be used to observe the shape of fractals that appear on the boundary of chaos. One aspect of the structure of chaos is that such fractals on a large scale may look nothing like each other, but as the magnification factor on the microscope is increased they look more and more alike. This is expressed by saying that renormalization converges. Convergence of renormalization has been a consistent theme since the very inception of chaos theory, thus it was believed that the structure of chaos was thoroughly understood. In an unexpected twist, the applicant recently made the groundbreaking discovery that there are natural systems for which the renormalization sometimes is convergent and at other times degenerate. This reveals that the structure of chaos in fact is much more intricate than was previously imagined.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: The aim of this project is to establish how the quantum state of an aspherical nanoparticle can be coherently interfaced with a superconducting circuit. Its main efforts can be summarized by two goals: (i) We will develop the theoretical tools required to manipulate the ro-translational quantum state of a levitated nanoparticle possessing a monopole and higher multipole moments by connecting it to a superconducting qubit. (ii) We will investigate how entanglement between the nanoparticle and the circuit can be exploited for earth-based macroscopic interference experiments and for coherence-enhanced force and torque sensing. Networking levitated nanoscale objects with quantized electrical circuits and qubits combines the high Q-factors and isolation of the former with the scalability and control of the latter. This project will point the way towards new fundamental tests of quantum physics and towards quantum technology.
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Group: Projects completed before 1 January 2021
Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: Background: Food allergy affects 6% of children in the EU, and has a major impact on quality of life, nutrition, health-economics and the food production industry. Cow’s milk (CM) is a common cause, and can be particularly problematic due to the ubiquitous nature of CM in foods. Strict dietary avoidance is difficult to achieve, and unpredictable life-threatening accidental reactions are common, leading to anxiety and social restrictions for patients and families. Oral immunotherapy (OIT) has been shown to be efficacious but is not widely accepted as routine treatment, due to significant safety concerns – allergic reactions are common, and can be particularly severe in CM-OIT.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: 'The nature of dark matter (DM) is arguably the biggest mystery in fundamental physics. Many experimental efforts are underway which aim to detect this elusive matter and measure its properties, using a wide variety of techniques, however to make full use of this data a combined statistical analysis must be performed which makes use of the data from all these experiments simultaneously, and compares this data to the predictions of many different theories while including all uncertainties, correlations and theoretical nuances self-consistently. Analyses of this kind are known as 'global fits'. I propose to use a newly developed, open-source global-fitting tool called GAMBIT to perform the largest and most robust combined statistical analysis of DM data to date. To do this I will extend the capabilities of GAMBIT to allow it to work with a class of models known as 'effective theories' which efficiently parameterise the degrees of freedom relevant to experiments at a particular energy scale, so that a global fit can be performed in a fully model-independent way. This will require several connected layers of effective theory to be utilised, to account for the different energy scales involved in the diverse set of DM experiments currently underway. The project is highly interdisciplinary and makes use of recent theoretical developments and experimental results in high energy physics, particle astrophysics, astronomy, nuclear physics, and computational statistics. The proposal will generate a transfer of knowledge to the host institution while developing the candidate's theoretical expertise in new directions, particularly particle astrophysics. The results of the project will be of wide use to the dark matter community, both in terms of direct analysis results and via the development of open-source computational tools for use in future analyses, and will provide robust guidance to experimentalists as to which dark matter candidates are the most promising.'
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Group: Projects completed before 1 January 2021
Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: Obesity and related co-morbidities give rise to severe health and socioeconomic problems. Surgical treatment for obesity (bariatric surgery) is remarkably effective in the control of morbid obesity and rapid resolution of Type 2 Diabetes, and the number of such procedures is increasing rapidly in many obesity-prevalent countries. We, and others, have demonstrated that surgical interventions such as Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass (RYGB) modulates gut hormone levels, induces systemic metabolic changes and results in the shift of the microbiome from Firmicutes to the Proteobacteria phylum. Although the gut microbiota have been implicated in the reduction of adiposity post-surgery, the long-term effect of altered gut microbiota on patients who have undergone RYGB, remains to be studied. Our recent data suggested that microbial activities are highly associated with inflammation and cancer. My research programme aims to investigate the RYGB-specific gut microbiota impacts on host physiology and colon cancer risk. To achieve this goal, I will employ a multidisciplinary approach that combines systems biology techniques with a bottom-up approach. This work will deliver phenotypic and mechanistic characterisation of the interplay between the host and the gut microbiota. The research findings will significantly contribute towards the understanding of fundamental molecular and cellular processes that are key in host and gut microbiota interactions. This will provide knowledge-based evidence of the gut microbial impact on human physiology, and has the potential to unravel novel prevention targets and promote a more thorough healthcare strategy for bariatric patients.
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CountryCode: UK
Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: Sleep is a fascinating phenomenon and one of the least understood mysteries of biology. It is universal among the animal kingdom and most species devote a large part of their day to sleep, despite the risks of lowering their defenses against predators or not engaging in more productive activities such as foraging or mating.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: Development of any organism starts with a totipotent cell (zygote). Through series of cell divisions and differentiation processes this cell will eventually give rise to the whole organism containing hundreds of specialised cell. While the cells at the onset of development have the capacity to generate all cell types (ie are toti-or pluripotent), this developmental capacity is progressively lost as the cells undertake cell fate decisions. At the molecular level, the memory of these events is laid down in a complex layer of epigenetic modifications at both the DNA and the chromatin level. Unidirectional character of the developmental progress dictates that the key acquired epigenetic modifications are stable and inherited through subsequent cell divisions. This paradigm is, however, challenged during cellular reprogramming that requires de-differentiation (nuclear transfer, induced pluripotent stem cells, wound healing and regeneration in lower organisms) or a change in cell fate (transdifferentiation). Despite intense efforts of numerous research teams, the molecular mechanisms of these processes remain enigmatic.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: DNA polymerases (DNA Pols) make various decisions during DNA replication. Decisions regarding nucleotide selection, lesion bypass and how to respond to replication errors are a few important examples. During replication, DNA Pols can synthesize DNA at remarkable rates, e.g. 1,000 bp/s for E. Coli DNA Pol III. However, errors can be introduced during replication, resulting in a terminal DNA mismatch. Mismatches can then be sensed and removed by action of the 3’ to 5’ exonuclease activity of the DNA Pol. How DNA Pols can sense mismatches to initiate proofreading and how the primer strand migrates into the exonuclease domain, often a distance of 30 Å, is the focus of this proposal. Moreover, this research aims to understand mechanisms of proofreading in higher complexity DNA Pol assemblies at single-molecule resolution. Proofreading will be studied with the model enzyme E. Coli DNA Pol III, consisting of separate protein subunits that assemble to form a higher order complex, namely the polymerase, exonuclease and the β2-clamp, which is a processivity factor that encircles the DNA and increases the affinity of the polymerase to the DNA. The proposed work will employ single-molecule FRET in order to evaluate proofreading dynamics at high spatial and temporal resolution. Three main objectives will be performed in order to understand (1) how DNA mismatches initiate proofreading (2) how mutations within the exonuclease domain affect proofreading and (3) how DNA lesions can influence proofreading as a function of position within the DNA template. These objectives will be achieved with a single-molecule FRET assay containing fluorescently labelled DNA to monitor proofreading dynamics in real time. This work will shift the knowledge frontier by advancing our understanding of proofreading during DNA replication in order to better realise the relationship between DNA mutations and the development of human diseases like cancer.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: Automatically translating human language has been a long sought-after goal in the field of Natural Language Processing (NLP). Machine Translation (MT) can significantly lower communication barriers, with enormous potential for positive social and economic impact. The dominant paradigm is Statistical Machine Translation (SMT), which learns to translate from human-translated examples.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: Streptococcus pneumoniae (the pneumococcus) is a bacterial species generally commensal to humans, but which occasionally causes infections responsible for the death of 800, 000 infants each year worldwide. Multiple genotypes exhibiting resistance to antibiotics have emerged in past years. Intriguingly, despite extensive antibiotic consumption operating strong selection for resistance, the latter remains at a stable frequency, 15% on average over the last 20 years in Europe. This is paradoxical, as robust coexistence of resistant and sensitive strains is unexpected under the simplest epidemiological models. In this project, I will investigate the possibility that coexistence is instead maintained by a more complex mechanism, relying on local adaptation to several niches characterized by different rates of antibiotic administration. I will develop a series of novel models with increasing realism and relevance to the context of S. pneumoniae, drawing from the often separate fields of population genetics and epidemiology. Starting with simple but general two- and multiple-niches models that allow for analytical solutions to provide initial insights, I will then build a more complex simulation model parameterized with biologically realistic contact and treatment structures. Output of this model will be confronted to large-scale patterns of spatial variation in resistance observed in epidemiological datasets. The analysis of these models will help us understand what factors facilitate the maintenance of coexistence in S. pneumoniae. This work may lead to better treatment policies to manage antibiotic resistance in this major pathogen.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: 'Recent studies states that 'Devices will continue to grow in volume and variety, and the forecast for connected devices by 2020 is 200 billion and climbing'. The increase of connectivity brings a drastic impact on the increase of cyber attacks. Protecting measurements are not enough, while finding who did the attack is a crucial for preventing the escalation of cyber attacks.
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Group: Projects completed before 1 January 2021
Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: One of the major issues when dealing with therapies for the rehabilitation of the lower limbs in stroke survivors is the in-deep assessment of their effectiveness and the lack of biomarkers for motor recovery. The motor functionality after therapy is evaluated only through clinical tests and scales which do not give information on the effective muscle state and the changes at the corticospinal level. The aim of restoring the motor functions has moved much of the attention of clinicians and researcher towards the use of the combination of brain stimulation techniques for the assessment of cortical excitability and Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) for the control of rehabilitation devices. This intervention induces cortical plasticity and reactivates the closed-loop pathway between the impaired cortical tract and the limb by using the cortical command to drive the device for the generation of the afferent volley. However, nothing is known about the changes of the neurophysiological correlates and how these influence the effective recovery of motor functions. NeuroN represents the first systematic attempt to investigate the neurophysiological correlates of changes in the excitability of the cortical areas responsible for ankle dorsiflexion in chronic hemiparetic stroke survivors with drop foot impairment and to identify novel biomarkers of motor recovery. NeuroN aims at filling the gap of knowledge on the functional effects of increased plasticity in chronic stroke survivors by integrating a BCI robot-based platform with the high-density surface electromyographic (HD-sEMG) recordings. The information coming from the decomposition of HD-sEMG signals give insight into the behavior of the motoneurons in the spinal cord and on the effective control command. NeuroN is expected to address one of the most intriguing issues in the neurorehabilitation field: the novel biomarkers developed will help in shaping new therapies for the recovery of motor function of stroke patients.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: Carbon fibre-reinforced polymers (CFRPs) are a rapidly growing class of materials as they possess excellent stiffness and strength in combination with a low density. They are vital in reaching the European objectives to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and to achieve more efficient material usage . They are becoming highly popular in aerospace and automotive industries, but their introduction is hampered by their low damage tolerance. This fellowship proposes a novel approach to increase the toughness and hence the damage tolerance of CFRPs by intelligently designing the microstructure of the material in a hierarchical manner. The objective is to predict the microstructure that maximises toughness through modelling, to manufacture this microstructure and to validate the predicted toughness experimentally. The translaminar fracture toughness of CFRPs is expected to be increased by 50-100%. This is realistic given the successful examples from nature as well as recent, but preliminary modelling predictions. The fellowship will benefit from synergies between the models developed by the experienced researcher during his PhD and by the supervisor’s group. An extensive and multidisciplinary framework of materials, mechanics and chemistry is uniquely available at Imperial to help to reach the objectives. The outcome of the project will help the EU to gain a competitive edge in the aerospace and automotive industries.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: Cell-autonomous immunity is the ability of a host cell to eliminate an invasive infectious agent. Recent work has shown that components of the cytoskeleton have a major role in cell-autonomous immunity and control of bacterial infection. The Mostowy group has shown that some intracellular bacteria, including Shigella flexneri and Mycobacterium marinum, can escape from phagosomes and invade the host cell cytosol where they interact with cytoskeleton components to form actin tails or be entrapped in septin cage-like structures. However, our knowledge of these interactions derives from a limited number of in vitro studies, and has not been fully characterized in vivo during a disease-causing infection. M. marinum, a species closely related to the human pathogen M. tuberculosis, can be applied as a paradigm to understand the cell biology of mycobacterial infection. Zebrafish is naturally susceptible to M. marinum and, as I have shown during my PhD, can be used as an important animal model to gain in-depth information about the innate immune response to bacterial infection. Using state-of-the-art genome editing tools and high resolution microscopy techniques, I will study M. marinum interactions with the cytoskeleton, and investigate the role of these interactions in cell-autonomous immunity. Using M. marinum, my specific objectives are: 1) to identify and characterize host and pathogen determinants affecting autophagy-cytoskeleton interactions, and 2) to investigate the discovered molecules and mechanisms in vivo using the zebrafish model. A more comprehensive understanding of M. marinum-cytoskeleton interactions will have important consequences for enhancing host defense and fighting antimicrobial resistance. This should provide vital clues towards new strategies aimed at combating infectious diseases, and possibly other human diseases that arise from a dysfunctional host response.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: The control of stem cell fate via external stimulation (ES) is a vital contribution to the advancement of tissue engineering (TE) for regenerative medicine (RM). In this project we propose a highly sensitive real-time characterisation of stem cells during applied ES in order to fully understand and elucidate cellular mechanisms during differentiation. This will be achieved using three major vectors of research; new conductive polymer (CP) materials for the ES of stem cells, Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), and Raman microspectroscopy (RMS) live cell phenotyping.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: In recent years, economic geography has strongly embraced the relational approach: entrepreneurs striving to generate innovations have been shown to benefit from embeddedness in local, cohesive networks if these are combined with connectivity to sparse, global ties that bring diversity. With this heightened importance of networks for innovation, it is rather surprising that academic research has nearly entirely overlooked the role of “networking”. Networks are portrayed as if they are formed exclusively through latent preferences to connect with certain people or through contextual factors that make people accidently connect. This leaves little space for entrepreneurs’ deliberate attempts to create the social capital they believe will help them innovate. We thus lack the micro-level theoretical foundations of the network-innovation relationship in economic geography. My research aims to build these foundations by developing a network behavioural approach to innovation in entrepreneurial clusters. I seek to investigate how within-cluster variation in entrepreneurs’ innovation performance may originate in differences in network behaviour and how between-cluster variation in performance may originate in the spread of effective network behaviours within but not between clusters. Answers to these questions should lead to fundamentally new insights into why certain clusters thrive as hubs of innovation and why certain entrepreneurs within clusters contribute more to the innovation in clusters than others. I will collect granular qualitative and quantitative data of the network behaviours of entrepreneurs through interviews, multi-wave surveys and online network monitoring tools to unveil how they decide which ties to build and which ones to call on in specific situations. I will then assess how these behaviours enable or constrain entrepreneurs and, in aggregate, clusters to innovate using large-scale econometric analyses as well social science experiments.
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CountryCode: UK
Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: 'According to the 'Europe 202 strategy', Europe should increase the use of photovoltaics (PV) and other renewable energy sources (RES) for a sustainable future. However, to this day, PV plants are not-controllable power sources, thus imposing limits on PV penetration due to technical restrictions.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: Smoothing properties of the Kaehler-Ricci flow have been known and used for a long time. Attempt to run the Kaehler-Ricci flow from a degenerate initial data has been of great interest in the last decades. The bet result so far was recently obtained by Guedj and Zeriahi that were able to define the maximal flow for any initial current with zero Lelong number. This initial current will be smoothed out immediately. One example was also given showing that there might be no regularity at all in the case of Fano manifolds when starting from a current with positive Lelong number. However it is expected that the regularizing effect happens outside analytic sets. The first goal of this proposal is to prove such a regularity result.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: AttoDNA considers the early (attosecond to few-femtosecond) events following photo-excitation/ionisation in DNA/RNA canonical and non-canonical nucleobases for the first time. This involves the electronic movement before the onset of nuclear dynamics, ascertaining the length in which this initial purely electronic motion extends in time and how it affects the ensuing nuclear dynamics and its outcome with regards to the photostability shown by the genomic material from a bottom-up approach. By monitoring the electronic and nuclear motions in canonical and non-canonical nucleobases, the way in which they couple can be elucidated and the specific motions contributing to photostability extracted from a novel standpoint.
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Group: Projects completed before 1 January 2021
Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: One of the biggest challenges of our society is the need to find a renewable, clean, easily storable and transportable energy source. Hydrogen and other solar fuels (e.g. methanol or formaldehyde) have been appointed as one of the future energy vectors. Having natural photosynthesis as inspiration, we can develop a device capable to split water using sunlight, obtaining oxygen and hydrogen. Although rapid progress is being made in the preparation of nanostructured electrodes that use visible light for fuel synthesis (including H2 evolution and CO2 reduction), their efficiency still remains modest due to slow catalytic function, the multi-electron requirements and the loss in efficiency due to electron (e-)/hole (h\) recombination. We aim to address these limitations by functionalising semiconductors with molecular catalysts for water oxidation, designed to achieve unidirectional charge separation and capable of accumulating multiple oxidations. This project involves the complete characterisation of the electron processes taking place within the photoanode using time resolved spectroscopic and electrochemical techniques. Through iterative design-evaluation-feedback we aim to identify the key limiting factors and model general rules to enhance the performance of photoanodes. Ultimately, the photoanodes will be assembled with a functional cathode to build a complete photoelectrochemical cell for solar fuel generation.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: Fundamental understanding of the catalytic chemistry and underlying mechanisms in carbon dioxide (CO2) reduction is an urgent need for efficient solar energy conversion from CO2, water and sunlight to valuable carbon-neutral fuels that urgently need to replace our fossil fuel-based economy of today. This proposal focuses on unraveling the reaction mechanisms of the reduction of CO2 in aqueous photoelectrochemical (PEC) systems in order to allow innovative development of more efficient chemistry for the production of solar fuels based on the understanding of the underlying mechanisms.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: Cardiovascular diseases are responsible for the greatest proportion of deaths in people under the age of 70 and cost the EU €110 billion each year. A major cause of heart dysfunction following myocardial infarction is the extensive remodeling of the extracellular matrix (ECM), which leads to the formation of fibrotic scar and death of cardiomyocytes - a collective process known as myocardial remodeling. Diagnosis and treatment of this progressive pathological remodeling process are a top priority in modern healthcare.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: Randomness pervades life and biological systems are continuously subject to variation. This variation may be stochastic, due to random fluctuations in the concentration of critical molecules, genetic, due to mutation accumulation, or environmental, because of changes in the environment over time. It is therefore remarkable how biological systems manage to operate with so much precision. The property of a system to produce an invariant output in the presence of considerable noise is called robustness. Development itself is highly robust to noise and this is instrumental for the successful transformation of a fertilised egg into a multi-cellular individual. Developmental robustness ensures the stability of phenotypic traits, including correct cell numbers in a given tissue. While research on developmental robustness has seen a surge over the last 15 years, most studies have remained theoretical, and we still lack appropriate experimental systems to elucidate the mechanisms via which robust outputs are achieved.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: Chronic hepatotropic infections including hepatitis B (HBV) and C (HCV) are a major public health
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Group: Projects completed before 1 January 2021
Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: Early-stage Catalytic Conversion of Lignin (ECCL), or the ‘Lignin-First’ approach, constitutes an emerging multidisciplinary research field targeting the valorisation of lignin. ECCL involves the concurrent extraction and catalytic conversion of the lignin fragments released from plant biomass in a one-pot process. In this manner, ECCL benefits from the intrinsically high reactivity of the lignin oligomers, leading to further depolymerisation (via hydrogenolysis of ether linkages) and, most importantly, to the passivation of the intermediates (via hydrodeoxygenation of aldehyde and ketone groups), thus protecting the lignin fragments from recondensation. In short, this novel approach renders a high yield of mono-aromatic products (>60%) and highly delignified pulps, allowing for the full utilisation of lignocellulose. LIGNINFIRST objectives will be achieved by high-risk/high-gain research into: (1) understanding (and control over) the solvolytic release of lignin fragments; (2) advancing the molecular understanding of H-transfer reactions catalysed by sponge Ni catalysts to accelerate the discovery of catalytic methods for lignin valorisation, and; (3) reaction engineering of the interdependent processing steps for fractionation of the initial biomass feedstock (catalytic upstream biorefining) to the intended value-added products (catalytic downstream processing). The full impact of LIGNINFIRST will be realised by undertaking pioneering research at the border of Wood Chemistry, Catalysis and Reaction Engineering. The most significant anticipated outcome is a profound understanding of the synergy between deconstruction of lignin, occurring in the plant tissue throughout the ‘cooking process’, and ECCL. The new scientific insights that will emerge from the implementation of this proposal have the great potential for revolutionising the utilisation of lignin in biorefineries.
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CountryCode: UK
Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: Understanding the mechanisms that eliminate unfit cells during development is key not only for proper organ formation but also to prevent tissue degeneration in the adult. Cell competition is a fitness quality control mechanism that occurs between cells of differing fitness levels and results in the selective elimination of those cells that, although viable, are deemed to be less fit than their neighbours. Cell competition is conserved from Drosophila to mammals and although some important regulators of this process have been identified, the mechanisms by which less-fit cells are eliminated are not well understood. Preliminary work in the Rodriguez laboratory has identified the mTOR pathway, a key metabolic sensor, as a possible regulator of cell competition in pluripotent stem cells. A small molecule screen for modulators of cell competition identified that inhibiting mTOR enhances defective pluripotent stem cell elimination during competition, and further studies revealed that mTOR activity is decreased in loser cells when confronted with winner cells. I will study the possibility that mTOR acts as a sensor of the competitive nature of pluripotent stem cells. The specific aims of this project are to find what pathways lead to differential mTOR activation during competition and unravel the mechanisms by which loss of mTOR leads to the elimination of defective stem cells. To answer these questions I will use mouse embryonic stem cells, as well as validate the in vivo relevance of my findings by studying the mouse embryo.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: Development of new materials over the past decade paved the way for organic/hybrid electronics into commercial applications. Now, perfection of material interfaces in organic/hybrid thin-film devices is key to drive the technology further and enable new, more advanced applications. INFORM offers a paradigm shift from focusing on materials to focusing on devices by probing, modelling and controlling relevant processes that take place at interfaces, e.g. charge transfer, injection and collection. By training researchers in this exciting, highly multidisciplinary area, INFORM contributes to the need for skilled, knowledgeable researchers in the field of multilayer thin-film devices in Europe. INFORM will generate fundamental insights and apply them to improve the performance and reliability of relevant devices that will allow INFORM’s industrial partners to grow their markets and take full advantage of the low-temperature, low-cost and large-area processing potential of new generation semiconductors. The challenges are wide-ranging and thus require a cross-European, multidisciplinary, intersectorial and multifaceted approach. The INFORM network consists of partners with complementary skills and toolboxes, including 9 academic groups fully equipped, experienced and knowledgeable in multilayer device research and supervision. The involvement of 4 non-academic partners at the highest level, through supervision of 2 ESRs and secondments, ensures ESR exposure to the industrial workplace and simultaneously provides benefits to the non-academic partners. Complementary training activities in personal skills (e.g writing and communicating), is given by a specialist partner. The combination of high level research and intense training endows the ESRs with multidisciplinary know-how and hands-on skills for careers that impact not only the field of multilayer devices, but also the broader quests for renewable energy resources and development of nanotechnology.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: The MultiCAMS project will develop an advanced computational strategy including numerical modelling and innovative model calibration for realistic assessment of historical unreinforced masonry structures. The presence of relevant historical heritage in Europe, partly still in use, together with high seismic risk in the Mediterranean areas highlights the need of assessing such structures considering current safety requirements and if necessary strengthened to prevent critical failure. The proposed assessment approach is based on the use of models with different levels of sophistication, comprising detailed mesoscale models where masonry units and mortar joints are modelled separately (low level), homogeneous shell/solid-element models in which masonry is considered as a continuum (intermediate level), and efficient macroscale models where entire structural parts (i.e. piers, spandrels) are represented by appropriate macro-elements (high level). In this respect, I will develop a novel numerical description with macro-elements for an efficient and practical analysis of masonry structures accounting for the interaction between the nonlinear in-plane and out-of-plane behaviour of different URM components. An innovative model calibration strategy utilising inverse analysis techniques will thus be developed to couple the efficiency of the novel simplified mechanical model and the accuracy of existing detailed models, such as the parameters of each model will be determined from the inverse analysis of the numerical response of the lower-level model. The main outcome of MultiCAMS will be a comprehensive and accurate methodology for the seismic assessment of historical masonry buildings, which represents an urgent requirement for the safeguard of human lives in many European urban areas, as shown by recent catastrophic events.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: It is widely known that metals, such as gold and silver, when suitably structured at the nanometre scale, are able to focus light into very small (sub-wavelength) volumes, greatly enhancing its local intensity. For this unique capability such metallic nanostructures are often referred to as “nanoantennas”. In the last decade, metallic nanoantennas have opened up a wide range of applications in numerous fields, spanning (bio)imaging and sensing to the development of optoelectronic hybrid devices. However, since the mechanism of light confinement relies on the collective oscillation of free electrons, generation of heat via Joule dissipation is inherent to the process and detrimental effects arise for several uses, such as surface-enhanced spectroscopies and nonlinear optics.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: As noted by European turbine network, gas turbine is and will remain dominant mode of energy conversion. An advanced experimental study of a model gas turbine combustor is proposed. The lasers play indispensable role in the experimental combustion research due to the associated non-intrusive nature. The laser diagnostics have evolved from a point measurement to planar measurement (2D) over the years. The objective of the present work is to develop novel laser diagnostics to deduce instantaneous 3D fields of the flow, air/fuel mixing, and flame-front topology in a 'volume'. The proposed technique will be applied to a model gas turbine combustor operating with and without combustion instability. A scanning stereoscopic Particle Image Velocimetry (flow field) and Laser Induced Fluorescence of CH2O radical (flame-front) and of fuel concentration will be assembled correlated with pressure traces. A 4 head Nd:YAG laser cluster will generate 4 parallel laser sheets separated in space and images will be recorded by high speed cameras. The novel use of laser cluster ensures high pulse energy and temporal resolution. Image processing will be developed to reconstruct the 3D fields from the planar slices. The approach will be validated in a Bunsen burner before applying it to swirl stabilized flames that mimic a typical gas turbine combustor. The technology readiness level (TRL) of the research will reach between TRL 3 to 4. The proposed research will diversify the skill set of the researcher and associated complementary training will ensure that the fellow becomes an established academic researcher. The impact of this work is the generation of a unique 3D flame database, which is of great importance for the understanding of turbulent flame-flow interaction and the evaluation of advanced numerical combustion models. Thus, the proposed research will enhance European competitiveness in gas turbine design and can have an impact on automotive engine development.
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Group: Projects completed before 1 January 2021
Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: Automatic Sentiment Estimation in the Wild
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
Description: In the recent years an unprecedented effort has been made to increase the rates of childhood immunization in resource poor countries. This has translated into an increased number of children receiving vaccines and a parallel decrease in the rate of illnesses from vaccine preventable diseases. However, in some regions it has proven difficult to achieve optimal levels of immunization mainly because of issues concerning communication, management and poor utilization of resources. Recent studies have questioned the validity of available vaccine coverage data and the way they are collected. Currently, both the progress of the vaccination programs and indirectly the level of protection in a population are inferred on the basis of administrative records. This largely unverified information is also utilized as performance indicator to allocate funds from government and donor agencies. Such self-certification practice does not incentivize the optimization of resources while it has been increasingly questioned in terms of its validity and integrity. We propose to develop and validate an innovative technical solution based on an assay system that integrates multiplex capability and analytical performance, to simultaneously quantify antibody levels against the major vaccine components, with both automation and wireless connectivity to produce spatial-temporal co-ordinates of individual determinations. The multiplex capability will facilitate the analysis of cross coverage monitoring while generating reactivity profiles against the different vaccine components to discriminate vaccinated versus infected individuals. Spatial temporal co-ordinates of assay results will be used to generate interactive data sets for modeling changes in the age-specific risk of infection and the risk of outbreaks. The proposed system represents a formidable tool of unprecedented power to monitor the progress of different vaccination programs and experimentally validate record-based coverage data. The consortium proposes to develop an additional implementation of the technology, a low-cost portable microarray solution for healthcare point of testing (i.e. private doctors or pediatrician clinics, small district hospitals, rapid control of real vaccination profile in emergency situations) that converts the protein microarray for the determination of antibody protection against vaccines antigens into a lateral flow protein microarray, which can be coupled with software application for Smart phones to read the results.
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Coordinator: IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Country: United Kingdom
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