Project acronym AnCon
Project A Comparative Anthropology of Conscience, Ethics and Human Rights
Researcher (PI) Tobias William Kelly
Host Institution (HI) THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH2, ERC-2014-CoG
Summary This project is a comparative anthropology of conscience, ethics and human rights. Numerous international human rights documents formally declare their commitment to protect freedom of conscience. But, what is conscience and how do we know it when we see it? How do we distinguish it from self-interest or fanaticism? And what happens when the concept, often associated with a distinct Christian or liberal history, travels across cultural boundaries? The project will examine the cultural conditions under which claims to conscience are made possible, and the types of claims that are most persuasive when doing so. The project addresses these issues through the comparative analysis of three case studies: British pacifists, Sri Lankan activists, and Soviet dissidents. These case studies have been carefully chosen to provide globally significant, but contrasting examples of contests over the implications of claims to conscience. If claims of conscience are often associated with a specifically liberal and Christian tradition, mid-twentieth century Britain can be said to stand at the centre of that tradition. Sri Lanka represents a particularly fraught post-colonial South Asian counterpoint, wracked by nationalist violence, and influenced by ethical traditions associated with forms of Hinduism and Buddhism. Soviet Russia represents a further contrast, a totalitarian regime, where atheism was the dominant ethical language. Finally, the project will return specifically to international human rights institutions, examining the history of the category of conscience in the UN human rights system. This project will be ground breaking, employing novel methods and analytical insights, in order to producing the first comparative analysis of the cultural and political salience of claims of conscience. In doing so, the research aims to transform our understandings of the limits and potentials of attempts to protect freedom of conscience.
Summary
This project is a comparative anthropology of conscience, ethics and human rights. Numerous international human rights documents formally declare their commitment to protect freedom of conscience. But, what is conscience and how do we know it when we see it? How do we distinguish it from self-interest or fanaticism? And what happens when the concept, often associated with a distinct Christian or liberal history, travels across cultural boundaries? The project will examine the cultural conditions under which claims to conscience are made possible, and the types of claims that are most persuasive when doing so. The project addresses these issues through the comparative analysis of three case studies: British pacifists, Sri Lankan activists, and Soviet dissidents. These case studies have been carefully chosen to provide globally significant, but contrasting examples of contests over the implications of claims to conscience. If claims of conscience are often associated with a specifically liberal and Christian tradition, mid-twentieth century Britain can be said to stand at the centre of that tradition. Sri Lanka represents a particularly fraught post-colonial South Asian counterpoint, wracked by nationalist violence, and influenced by ethical traditions associated with forms of Hinduism and Buddhism. Soviet Russia represents a further contrast, a totalitarian regime, where atheism was the dominant ethical language. Finally, the project will return specifically to international human rights institutions, examining the history of the category of conscience in the UN human rights system. This project will be ground breaking, employing novel methods and analytical insights, in order to producing the first comparative analysis of the cultural and political salience of claims of conscience. In doing so, the research aims to transform our understandings of the limits and potentials of attempts to protect freedom of conscience.
Max ERC Funding
1 457 869 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-08-01, End date: 2021-01-31
Project acronym BlackHoleMaps
Project Mapping gravitational waves from collisions of black holes
Researcher (PI) Mark Douglas Hannam
Host Institution (HI) CARDIFF UNIVERSITY
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), PE2, ERC-2014-CoG
Summary Breakthroughs in numerical relativity in 2005 gave us unprecedented access to the strong-field regime of general relativity, making possible solutions of the full nonlinear Einstein equations for the merger of two black holes. Numerical relativity is also crucial to study fundamental physics with gravitational-wave (GW) observations: numerical solutions allow us to construct models that will be essential to extract physical information from observations in data from Advanced LIGO and Virgo, which will operate from late 2015. Complete signal models will allow us to follow up our first theoretical predictions of the nature of black-hole mergers with their first observational measurements.
The goal of this project is to advance numerical-relativity methods, deepen our understanding of black-hole mergers, and map the parameter space of binary configurations with the most comprehensive and systematic set of numerical calculations performed to date, in order to produce a complete GW signal model. Central to this problem is the purely general-relativistic effect of orbital precession. The inclusion of precession in waveform models is the most challenging and urgent theoretical problem in the build-up to GW astronomy. Simulations must cover a seven-dimensional parameter space of binary configurations, but their computational cost makes a naive covering unfeasible. This project capitalizes on a breakthrough preliminary model produced by my team in 2013, with the pragmatic goal of focussing on the physics that will be measurable with GW detectors over the next five years.
My team at Cardiff is uniquely placed to tackle this problem. Since 2005 I have been at the forefront of black-hole simulations and waveform modelling, and the Cardiff group is a world leader in analysis of GW detector data. This project will consolidate my team to make breakthroughs in strong-field gravity, astrophysics, fundamental physics and cosmology using GW observations.
Summary
Breakthroughs in numerical relativity in 2005 gave us unprecedented access to the strong-field regime of general relativity, making possible solutions of the full nonlinear Einstein equations for the merger of two black holes. Numerical relativity is also crucial to study fundamental physics with gravitational-wave (GW) observations: numerical solutions allow us to construct models that will be essential to extract physical information from observations in data from Advanced LIGO and Virgo, which will operate from late 2015. Complete signal models will allow us to follow up our first theoretical predictions of the nature of black-hole mergers with their first observational measurements.
The goal of this project is to advance numerical-relativity methods, deepen our understanding of black-hole mergers, and map the parameter space of binary configurations with the most comprehensive and systematic set of numerical calculations performed to date, in order to produce a complete GW signal model. Central to this problem is the purely general-relativistic effect of orbital precession. The inclusion of precession in waveform models is the most challenging and urgent theoretical problem in the build-up to GW astronomy. Simulations must cover a seven-dimensional parameter space of binary configurations, but their computational cost makes a naive covering unfeasible. This project capitalizes on a breakthrough preliminary model produced by my team in 2013, with the pragmatic goal of focussing on the physics that will be measurable with GW detectors over the next five years.
My team at Cardiff is uniquely placed to tackle this problem. Since 2005 I have been at the forefront of black-hole simulations and waveform modelling, and the Cardiff group is a world leader in analysis of GW detector data. This project will consolidate my team to make breakthroughs in strong-field gravity, astrophysics, fundamental physics and cosmology using GW observations.
Max ERC Funding
1 998 009 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-10-01, End date: 2022-03-31
Project acronym CC
Project Combinatorial Construction
Researcher (PI) Peter Keevash
Host Institution (HI) THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), PE1, ERC-2014-CoG
Summary Combinatorial Construction is a mathematical challenge with many applications. Examples include the construction of networks that are very sparse but highly connected, or codes that can correct many transmission errors with little overhead in communication costs. For a general class of combinatorial objects, and some desirable property, the fundamental question in Combinatorial Construction is to demonstrate the existence of an object with the property, preferably via an explicit algorithmic construction. Thus it is ubiquitous in Computer Science, including applications to expanders, sorting networks, distributed communication, data storage, codes, cryptography and derandomisation. In popular culture it appears as the unsolved `lottery problem' of determining the minimum number of tickets that guarantee a prize. In a recent preprint I prove the Existence Conjecture for combinatorial designs, via a new method of Randomised Algebraic Constructions; this result has already attracted considerable attention in the mathematical community. The significance is not only in the solution of a problem posed by Steiner in 1852, but also in the discovery of a powerful new method, that promises to have many further applications in Combinatorics, and more widely in Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science. I am now poised to resolve many other problems of combinatorial construction.
Summary
Combinatorial Construction is a mathematical challenge with many applications. Examples include the construction of networks that are very sparse but highly connected, or codes that can correct many transmission errors with little overhead in communication costs. For a general class of combinatorial objects, and some desirable property, the fundamental question in Combinatorial Construction is to demonstrate the existence of an object with the property, preferably via an explicit algorithmic construction. Thus it is ubiquitous in Computer Science, including applications to expanders, sorting networks, distributed communication, data storage, codes, cryptography and derandomisation. In popular culture it appears as the unsolved `lottery problem' of determining the minimum number of tickets that guarantee a prize. In a recent preprint I prove the Existence Conjecture for combinatorial designs, via a new method of Randomised Algebraic Constructions; this result has already attracted considerable attention in the mathematical community. The significance is not only in the solution of a problem posed by Steiner in 1852, but also in the discovery of a powerful new method, that promises to have many further applications in Combinatorics, and more widely in Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science. I am now poised to resolve many other problems of combinatorial construction.
Max ERC Funding
1 706 729 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-01-01, End date: 2021-06-30
Project acronym CCT
Project The psychology and neurobiology of cognitive control training in humans
Researcher (PI) Christopher David Iain Chambers
Host Institution (HI) CARDIFF UNIVERSITY
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH4, ERC-2014-CoG
Summary Cognitive control regulates our thoughts and actions, helping us avoid impulsive behaviours that are inappropriate, costly or dangerous. In recent years, evidence has emerged that training in behavioural tasks that promote response inhibition or avoidance of specific stimuli can enhance cognitive control, reducing overeating and alcohol consumption. Despite the promising nature of cognitive control training (CCT), we know little about which CCT methods are most effective, how individual differences determine training outcomes, whether CCT produces benefits for real-life behaviour, and how CCT alters – and is determined by – the structure and function of the brain. My aim is to discover what works in CCT and how the effects of training relate to neurophysiology. Subproject 1 will be the largest ever trial on the effectiveness of different CCT methods for achieving weight loss, recruiting 36,000 participants worldwide to complete an internet-based training programme via the Guardian. This study will reveal, with high statistical power, which CCT methods are the most effective and which individual differences are most important for producing real-life benefits. Subproject 2 will investigate how CCT influences neurobiology, and how individual differences in neurobiology influence CCT outcomes. In Subproject 2a, I will focus on theoretically predicted changes to GABAergic systems in prefrontal and motor cortex, and I will test the effect of GABAergic brain stimulation on training outcomes. In Subproject 2b, I will use concurrent brain stimulation (TMS) and brain imaging (fMRI) to test how CCT alters top-down coupling between prefrontal cortex and remote regions that mediate reward and emotion. I will also study how CCT alters, and is altered by, white matter microstructure. This project promises to advance understanding of the causal determinants and moderators of CCT, with implications for its suitability as a clinical adjunct in addiction therapy and behaviour change.
Summary
Cognitive control regulates our thoughts and actions, helping us avoid impulsive behaviours that are inappropriate, costly or dangerous. In recent years, evidence has emerged that training in behavioural tasks that promote response inhibition or avoidance of specific stimuli can enhance cognitive control, reducing overeating and alcohol consumption. Despite the promising nature of cognitive control training (CCT), we know little about which CCT methods are most effective, how individual differences determine training outcomes, whether CCT produces benefits for real-life behaviour, and how CCT alters – and is determined by – the structure and function of the brain. My aim is to discover what works in CCT and how the effects of training relate to neurophysiology. Subproject 1 will be the largest ever trial on the effectiveness of different CCT methods for achieving weight loss, recruiting 36,000 participants worldwide to complete an internet-based training programme via the Guardian. This study will reveal, with high statistical power, which CCT methods are the most effective and which individual differences are most important for producing real-life benefits. Subproject 2 will investigate how CCT influences neurobiology, and how individual differences in neurobiology influence CCT outcomes. In Subproject 2a, I will focus on theoretically predicted changes to GABAergic systems in prefrontal and motor cortex, and I will test the effect of GABAergic brain stimulation on training outcomes. In Subproject 2b, I will use concurrent brain stimulation (TMS) and brain imaging (fMRI) to test how CCT alters top-down coupling between prefrontal cortex and remote regions that mediate reward and emotion. I will also study how CCT alters, and is altered by, white matter microstructure. This project promises to advance understanding of the causal determinants and moderators of CCT, with implications for its suitability as a clinical adjunct in addiction therapy and behaviour change.
Max ERC Funding
1 998 305 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-11-01, End date: 2020-10-31
Project acronym CNT-QUBIT
Project Carbon Nanotube Quantum Circuits
Researcher (PI) Mark Robertus Buitelaar
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), PE3, ERC-2014-CoG
Summary The aim of this proposal is to use spin qubits defined in carbon nanotube quantum dots to demonstrate measurement-based entanglement in an all-electrical and scalable solid-state architecture. The project makes use of spin-orbit interaction to drive spin rotations in the carbon nanotube host system and hyperfine interaction to store quantum information in the nuclear spin states. The proposal builds on techniques developed by the principal investigator for fast and non-invasive read-out of the electron spin qubits using radio-frequency reflectometry and spin-to-charge conversion.
Any quantum computer requires entanglement. One route to achieve entanglement between electron spin qubits in quantum dots is to use the direct interaction of neighbouring qubits due to their electron wavefunction overlap. This approach, however, becomes rapidly impractical for any large scale quantum processor, as distant qubits can only be entangled through the use of qubits in between. Here I propose an alternative strategy which makes use of an intriguing quantum mechanical effect by which two spatially separated spin qubits coupled to a single electrical resonator become entangled if a measurement cannot tell them apart.
The quantum information encoded in the entangled electron spin qubits will be transferred to carbon-13 nuclear spins which are used as a quantum memory with coherence times that exceed seconds. Entanglement with further qubits then proceeds again via projective measurements of the electron spin qubits without risk of losing the existing entanglement. When entanglement of the electron spin qubits is heralded – which might take several attempts – the quantum information is transferred again to the nuclear spin states. This allows for the coupling of large numbers of physically separated qubits, building up so-called graph or cluster states in an all-electrical and scalable solid-state architecture.
Summary
The aim of this proposal is to use spin qubits defined in carbon nanotube quantum dots to demonstrate measurement-based entanglement in an all-electrical and scalable solid-state architecture. The project makes use of spin-orbit interaction to drive spin rotations in the carbon nanotube host system and hyperfine interaction to store quantum information in the nuclear spin states. The proposal builds on techniques developed by the principal investigator for fast and non-invasive read-out of the electron spin qubits using radio-frequency reflectometry and spin-to-charge conversion.
Any quantum computer requires entanglement. One route to achieve entanglement between electron spin qubits in quantum dots is to use the direct interaction of neighbouring qubits due to their electron wavefunction overlap. This approach, however, becomes rapidly impractical for any large scale quantum processor, as distant qubits can only be entangled through the use of qubits in between. Here I propose an alternative strategy which makes use of an intriguing quantum mechanical effect by which two spatially separated spin qubits coupled to a single electrical resonator become entangled if a measurement cannot tell them apart.
The quantum information encoded in the entangled electron spin qubits will be transferred to carbon-13 nuclear spins which are used as a quantum memory with coherence times that exceed seconds. Entanglement with further qubits then proceeds again via projective measurements of the electron spin qubits without risk of losing the existing entanglement. When entanglement of the electron spin qubits is heralded – which might take several attempts – the quantum information is transferred again to the nuclear spin states. This allows for the coupling of large numbers of physically separated qubits, building up so-called graph or cluster states in an all-electrical and scalable solid-state architecture.
Max ERC Funding
1 998 574 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-09-01, End date: 2021-04-30
Project acronym Code4Memory
Project Neural oscillations - a code for memory
Researcher (PI) Simon Hanslmayr
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH4, ERC-2014-CoG
Summary Episodic memory refers to the fascinating human ability to remember past events in a highly associative and information rich way. But how are these memories coded in human brains? Any mechanism accounting for episodic memory must accomplish at least two functions: to build novel associations, and to represent the information constituting the memory. Neural oscillations, regulating the synchrony of neural assemblies, are ideally suited to accomplish these two functions, but in opposing ways. On the one hand, neurophysiological work suggests that increased synchrony strengthens synaptic connections and thus forms the basis for associative memory. Neurocomputational work, on the other hand, suggests that decreased synchrony is necessary to flexibly express information rich patterns in a neural assembly. Therefore, a conundrum exists as to how oscillations code episodic memory. The aim of this project is to propose and test a new framework that has the potential to reconcile this conflict. The central idea is that synchronization and desynchronization cooperatively code episodic memories, with synchronized activity in the hippocampus in the theta (~4 Hz) and gamma (~ 40-60 Hz) frequency range mediating the building of associations, and neocortical desynchronization in the alpha (~10 Hz) and beta (~15 Hz) frequency range mediating the representation of mnemonic information. Importantly the two modules, with their respective synchronous/asynchronous behaviours, must interact during the formation and retrieval of episodic memories, but how and whether this is the case remains untested to date. I will test these fundamental questions using a multidisciplinary and multi-method approach, including human single cell recordings, neuroimaging, brain stimulation, and computational modelling. The results from these experiments have the potential to reveal the neural code that human episodic memory is based on, which is still one of the biggest mysteries of the human mind.
Summary
Episodic memory refers to the fascinating human ability to remember past events in a highly associative and information rich way. But how are these memories coded in human brains? Any mechanism accounting for episodic memory must accomplish at least two functions: to build novel associations, and to represent the information constituting the memory. Neural oscillations, regulating the synchrony of neural assemblies, are ideally suited to accomplish these two functions, but in opposing ways. On the one hand, neurophysiological work suggests that increased synchrony strengthens synaptic connections and thus forms the basis for associative memory. Neurocomputational work, on the other hand, suggests that decreased synchrony is necessary to flexibly express information rich patterns in a neural assembly. Therefore, a conundrum exists as to how oscillations code episodic memory. The aim of this project is to propose and test a new framework that has the potential to reconcile this conflict. The central idea is that synchronization and desynchronization cooperatively code episodic memories, with synchronized activity in the hippocampus in the theta (~4 Hz) and gamma (~ 40-60 Hz) frequency range mediating the building of associations, and neocortical desynchronization in the alpha (~10 Hz) and beta (~15 Hz) frequency range mediating the representation of mnemonic information. Importantly the two modules, with their respective synchronous/asynchronous behaviours, must interact during the formation and retrieval of episodic memories, but how and whether this is the case remains untested to date. I will test these fundamental questions using a multidisciplinary and multi-method approach, including human single cell recordings, neuroimaging, brain stimulation, and computational modelling. The results from these experiments have the potential to reveal the neural code that human episodic memory is based on, which is still one of the biggest mysteries of the human mind.
Max ERC Funding
1 897 751 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-10-01, End date: 2021-09-30
Project acronym COMPEN
Project Penal Policymaking and the prisoner experience: a comparative analysis
Researcher (PI) Benjamin Crewe
Host Institution (HI) THE CHANCELLOR MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH2, ERC-2014-CoG
Summary Recent years have seen renewed interest in the political economy of punishment, yet almost no attention has been given to the factors that translate socio-political arrangements into penal practices or the specific nature of imprisonment in different political-economic systems. Based on research in England & Wales and one Nordic nation, the project goals are to expose the dynamics of the penal state and the nature of penality in countries that are considered ‘exclusionary’ and ‘inclusionary’ respectively in their socio-economic and penal practices. These goals will be achieved through four comparative sub-projects: first, a study of penal policymaking and the ‘penal field’ (the players and processes that shape penal policy and practice); second, an exploration of the texture of imprisonment for women and sex offenders, groups presumed to experience inclusionary and exclusionary penal practices in distinctive ways; third, a study of how these prisoners experience entry into and exit from the system; fourth, a study of the ‘deep end’ imprisonment in both countries.
A central aim is to interrogate widespread assumptions about the relative mildness/severity of penal practices in inclusionary and exclusionary nations. The research will employ an emerging framework that conceptualises the prison experience through notions of ‘depth’, ‘weight’, ‘tightness’ and ‘breadth’. It will foreground the roles of shame and guilt in shaping prisoners’ orientations, concepts that feature in theories of offending and reintegration, but are absent from the sociology of imprisonment. Through the concept of ‘penal consciousness’, the project will also explore the interaction between the punitive intentions of the state and prisoners’ perceptions of the purposes and legitimacy of their punishment. The research will be groundbreaking in several ways, reshaping the field of comparative penology, and linking macro issues of the penal state with the lived realities of the prison landings.
Summary
Recent years have seen renewed interest in the political economy of punishment, yet almost no attention has been given to the factors that translate socio-political arrangements into penal practices or the specific nature of imprisonment in different political-economic systems. Based on research in England & Wales and one Nordic nation, the project goals are to expose the dynamics of the penal state and the nature of penality in countries that are considered ‘exclusionary’ and ‘inclusionary’ respectively in their socio-economic and penal practices. These goals will be achieved through four comparative sub-projects: first, a study of penal policymaking and the ‘penal field’ (the players and processes that shape penal policy and practice); second, an exploration of the texture of imprisonment for women and sex offenders, groups presumed to experience inclusionary and exclusionary penal practices in distinctive ways; third, a study of how these prisoners experience entry into and exit from the system; fourth, a study of the ‘deep end’ imprisonment in both countries.
A central aim is to interrogate widespread assumptions about the relative mildness/severity of penal practices in inclusionary and exclusionary nations. The research will employ an emerging framework that conceptualises the prison experience through notions of ‘depth’, ‘weight’, ‘tightness’ and ‘breadth’. It will foreground the roles of shame and guilt in shaping prisoners’ orientations, concepts that feature in theories of offending and reintegration, but are absent from the sociology of imprisonment. Through the concept of ‘penal consciousness’, the project will also explore the interaction between the punitive intentions of the state and prisoners’ perceptions of the purposes and legitimacy of their punishment. The research will be groundbreaking in several ways, reshaping the field of comparative penology, and linking macro issues of the penal state with the lived realities of the prison landings.
Max ERC Funding
1 964 948 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-09-01, End date: 2021-08-31
Project acronym COMPROP
Project Computational Propaganda: Investigating the Impact of Algorithms and Bots on Political Discourse in Europe
Researcher (PI) Philip Howard
Host Institution (HI) THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH2, ERC-2014-CoG
Summary Social media can have an impressive impact on civic engagement and political discourse. Yet increasingly we find political actors using digital media and automated scripts for social control. Computational propaganda—through bots, botnets, and algorithms—has become one of the most concerning impacts of technology innovation. Unfortunately, bot identification and impact analysis are among the most difficult research challenges facing the social and computer sciences.
COMPROP objectives are to advance a) rigorous social and computer science on bot use, b) critical theory on digital manipulation and political outcomes, c) our understanding of how social media propaganda impacts social movement organization and vitality. This project will innovate through i) “real-time” social and information science actively disseminated to journalists, researchers, policy experts and the interested public, ii) the first detailed data set of political bot activity, iii) deepened expertise through cultivation of a regional expert network able to detect bots and their impact in Europe.
COMPROP will achieve this through multi-method and reflexive work packages: 1) international qualitative fieldwork with teams of bot makers and computer scientists working to detect bots; 2a) construction of an original event data set of incidents of political bot use and 2b) treatment of the data set with fuzzy set and traditional statistics; 3) computational theory for detecting political bots and 4) a sustained dissemination strategy. This project will employ state-of-the-art “network ethnography” techniques, use the latest fuzzy set / qualitative comparative statistics, and advance computational theory on bot detection via cutting-edge algorithmic work enhanced by new crowd-sourcing techniques.
Political bots are already being deployed over social networks in Europe. COMPROP will put the best methods in social and computer science to work on the size of the problem and the possible solutions.
Summary
Social media can have an impressive impact on civic engagement and political discourse. Yet increasingly we find political actors using digital media and automated scripts for social control. Computational propaganda—through bots, botnets, and algorithms—has become one of the most concerning impacts of technology innovation. Unfortunately, bot identification and impact analysis are among the most difficult research challenges facing the social and computer sciences.
COMPROP objectives are to advance a) rigorous social and computer science on bot use, b) critical theory on digital manipulation and political outcomes, c) our understanding of how social media propaganda impacts social movement organization and vitality. This project will innovate through i) “real-time” social and information science actively disseminated to journalists, researchers, policy experts and the interested public, ii) the first detailed data set of political bot activity, iii) deepened expertise through cultivation of a regional expert network able to detect bots and their impact in Europe.
COMPROP will achieve this through multi-method and reflexive work packages: 1) international qualitative fieldwork with teams of bot makers and computer scientists working to detect bots; 2a) construction of an original event data set of incidents of political bot use and 2b) treatment of the data set with fuzzy set and traditional statistics; 3) computational theory for detecting political bots and 4) a sustained dissemination strategy. This project will employ state-of-the-art “network ethnography” techniques, use the latest fuzzy set / qualitative comparative statistics, and advance computational theory on bot detection via cutting-edge algorithmic work enhanced by new crowd-sourcing techniques.
Political bots are already being deployed over social networks in Europe. COMPROP will put the best methods in social and computer science to work on the size of the problem and the possible solutions.
Max ERC Funding
1 980 112 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-01-01, End date: 2020-12-31
Project acronym CORONALDOLLS
Project Multi-Scale Coronal Heating: A New Approach to an Old Question.
Researcher (PI) Ine Marie J Ineke De Moortel
Host Institution (HI) THE UNIVERSITY COURT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREWS
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), PE9, ERC-2014-CoG
Summary CORONALDOLLS will tackle the long-standing question of the extremely high temperatures in the Sun’s outer atmosphere (corona) by taking a modern, progressive approach: forward modelling (creating synthetic observations) will be used to (i) link 3D numerical simulations of in-depth models with large scale computational experiments and (ii) provide observational diagnostics to compare models to high resolution, multi wavelength observations both qualitatively and quantitatively. This timely, multi-scale (‘russian dolls’) approach will achieve an innovative synergy between coronal heating and coronal seismology, where the coronal heating models will use input from, and be benchmarked against, information gained about the solar atmosphere through coronal seismology.
From a series of in-depth, 3D numerical studies, considering, in turn, three of the most promising heating processes (Taylor relaxation, braiding and Alfvén wave heating) at their particular spatial and temporal scales, we will determine:
- the cadence of the heating: low-frequency (‘bursty’) vs high-frequency (‘near-continuous’);
- the range of parameters for which heating is most efficient (i.e. reaches a threshold temperature and is distributed throughout the 3D volume);
- observational diagnostics to compare with large scale computational experiments and observational data.
This systematic, comprehensive study will allow CORONALDOLLS to answer the fundamental question: Can we unambiguously identify physical heating mechanisms and determine their relative contributions, both in large-scale numerical simulations and high resolution observations and, if so, how?
In parallel, the advanced 3D computational models will provide a ‘proof of concept’ for coronal seismology, i.e. establish the robustness of the currently used simple models and how the interpretation of observed waves and oscillations in the optically thin solar atmosphere is affected by line-of-sight integration and instrument resolution.
Summary
CORONALDOLLS will tackle the long-standing question of the extremely high temperatures in the Sun’s outer atmosphere (corona) by taking a modern, progressive approach: forward modelling (creating synthetic observations) will be used to (i) link 3D numerical simulations of in-depth models with large scale computational experiments and (ii) provide observational diagnostics to compare models to high resolution, multi wavelength observations both qualitatively and quantitatively. This timely, multi-scale (‘russian dolls’) approach will achieve an innovative synergy between coronal heating and coronal seismology, where the coronal heating models will use input from, and be benchmarked against, information gained about the solar atmosphere through coronal seismology.
From a series of in-depth, 3D numerical studies, considering, in turn, three of the most promising heating processes (Taylor relaxation, braiding and Alfvén wave heating) at their particular spatial and temporal scales, we will determine:
- the cadence of the heating: low-frequency (‘bursty’) vs high-frequency (‘near-continuous’);
- the range of parameters for which heating is most efficient (i.e. reaches a threshold temperature and is distributed throughout the 3D volume);
- observational diagnostics to compare with large scale computational experiments and observational data.
This systematic, comprehensive study will allow CORONALDOLLS to answer the fundamental question: Can we unambiguously identify physical heating mechanisms and determine their relative contributions, both in large-scale numerical simulations and high resolution observations and, if so, how?
In parallel, the advanced 3D computational models will provide a ‘proof of concept’ for coronal seismology, i.e. establish the robustness of the currently used simple models and how the interpretation of observed waves and oscillations in the optically thin solar atmosphere is affected by line-of-sight integration and instrument resolution.
Max ERC Funding
2 000 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-10-01, End date: 2022-03-31
Project acronym CosmicDust
Project Lighting up the dark - the evolution of dust throughout cosmic time
Researcher (PI) Haley Louise Gomez
Host Institution (HI) CARDIFF UNIVERSITY
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), PE9, ERC-2014-CoG
Summary After more than two decades of infrared astronomy, we still know very little about the origin and evolution of cosmic dust in galaxies, responsible for obscuring half of all starlight since the Big Bang. This obscured starlight is re-radiated in a region of the electromagnetic spectrum that is still relatively unexplored. Herschel provides a unique opportunity to resolve this by revealing the 90% of dust too cold to be detected before, yet only a tiny fraction of the largest survey of the sky carried out with Herschel has been exploited.
This project aims to unravel the dust and gas content of galaxies in the local universe and over cosmic time. I will produce the first statistical census of dust in galaxies, pushing out to earlier cosmic epochs than previously possible. This also provides us with an opportunity to detect unusual objects not seen in other surveys, including a population of extremely dusty galaxies found in Herschel with blue optical colours and very different properties to more evolved spirals typical of the Milky Way. I will use our multi-wavelength data to investigate the emissivity, gas and star formation conditions on resolved spatial scales. Our Herschel data will also expose the role of environment in the interstellar content of early-type and spiral galaxies.
I propose a novel approach to resolve the controversy of whether dust forms in exploding stars using polarized light. This could have implications for the detection of polarized signals in the relic radiation from the Big Bang, currently attributed to primordial gravitational waves. Our polarized dust maps of nearby supernova will reveal whether this could be a major contaminant to cosmological signals.
This project is timely due to the availability of final Herschel data products and new facilities in 2015-16 in combination with tools and techniques that we have tried and tested. This ERC award will provide me with the resources to continue to lead this emerging field.
Summary
After more than two decades of infrared astronomy, we still know very little about the origin and evolution of cosmic dust in galaxies, responsible for obscuring half of all starlight since the Big Bang. This obscured starlight is re-radiated in a region of the electromagnetic spectrum that is still relatively unexplored. Herschel provides a unique opportunity to resolve this by revealing the 90% of dust too cold to be detected before, yet only a tiny fraction of the largest survey of the sky carried out with Herschel has been exploited.
This project aims to unravel the dust and gas content of galaxies in the local universe and over cosmic time. I will produce the first statistical census of dust in galaxies, pushing out to earlier cosmic epochs than previously possible. This also provides us with an opportunity to detect unusual objects not seen in other surveys, including a population of extremely dusty galaxies found in Herschel with blue optical colours and very different properties to more evolved spirals typical of the Milky Way. I will use our multi-wavelength data to investigate the emissivity, gas and star formation conditions on resolved spatial scales. Our Herschel data will also expose the role of environment in the interstellar content of early-type and spiral galaxies.
I propose a novel approach to resolve the controversy of whether dust forms in exploding stars using polarized light. This could have implications for the detection of polarized signals in the relic radiation from the Big Bang, currently attributed to primordial gravitational waves. Our polarized dust maps of nearby supernova will reveal whether this could be a major contaminant to cosmological signals.
This project is timely due to the availability of final Herschel data products and new facilities in 2015-16 in combination with tools and techniques that we have tried and tested. This ERC award will provide me with the resources to continue to lead this emerging field.
Max ERC Funding
1 789 714 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-09-01, End date: 2021-02-28
