Project acronym DASI
Project Digital Archive for the Study of pre-Islamic Arabian Inscriptions
Researcher (PI) Alessandra Avanzini
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITA DI PISA
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH5, ERC-2010-AdG_20100407
Summary In the Arabian peninsula, before the advent of Islam some distinctive civilizations flourished with a remarkable cultural level and left behind an important epigraphic and artistic wealth in terms of quality and interest. The history of these cultures is known almost exclusively by epigraphic material. In fact, the majority of texts that the inhabitants of Arabia have left us are the inscriptions that are found in their tens of thousands all over the lands.
However, the inscriptions of pre-Islamic Arabia are only relatively known and often difficult to interpret, and scholars are obliged to draw on resources which are outdated or overly narrow in scope. On the basis of these considerations, DASI would like to apply the modern computer technology to the study of pre-Islamic inscriptions. The main objective of DASI is to improve and enrich the existing CSAI project (Corpus of South Arabian Inscriptions: http://csai.humnet.unipi.it) in terms of methodology and contents creating a digital archive of the whole corpus of pre-Islamic Arabian inscriptions. This archive is intended to become the virtual place where all the existing inscriptions from Arabia are gathered and can be managed, consulted and studied: the virtual ambient will collect the inscriptions that are physically located in different, faraway places such as archaeological sites in Arabia, as well as museums or private collections all over the world, but it will also document inscriptions by now physically lost and known only thorough previous publications.
By actually cataloguing and studying these texts, the aim of DASI is to achieve a better overall perception and knowledge of the epigraphic heritage of pre-Islamic Arabia - yet a very young field - and consequently of its languages and cultures.
Summary
In the Arabian peninsula, before the advent of Islam some distinctive civilizations flourished with a remarkable cultural level and left behind an important epigraphic and artistic wealth in terms of quality and interest. The history of these cultures is known almost exclusively by epigraphic material. In fact, the majority of texts that the inhabitants of Arabia have left us are the inscriptions that are found in their tens of thousands all over the lands.
However, the inscriptions of pre-Islamic Arabia are only relatively known and often difficult to interpret, and scholars are obliged to draw on resources which are outdated or overly narrow in scope. On the basis of these considerations, DASI would like to apply the modern computer technology to the study of pre-Islamic inscriptions. The main objective of DASI is to improve and enrich the existing CSAI project (Corpus of South Arabian Inscriptions: http://csai.humnet.unipi.it) in terms of methodology and contents creating a digital archive of the whole corpus of pre-Islamic Arabian inscriptions. This archive is intended to become the virtual place where all the existing inscriptions from Arabia are gathered and can be managed, consulted and studied: the virtual ambient will collect the inscriptions that are physically located in different, faraway places such as archaeological sites in Arabia, as well as museums or private collections all over the world, but it will also document inscriptions by now physically lost and known only thorough previous publications.
By actually cataloguing and studying these texts, the aim of DASI is to achieve a better overall perception and knowledge of the epigraphic heritage of pre-Islamic Arabia - yet a very young field - and consequently of its languages and cultures.
Max ERC Funding
2 129 200 €
Duration
Start date: 2011-05-01, End date: 2016-04-30
Project acronym EVOLOME
Project Genetic and phenotypic precursors of antibiotic resistance in evolving bacterial populations: from single cell to population level analyses
Researcher (PI) Nathalie Balaban
Host Institution (HI) THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY OF JERUSALEM
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), LS8, ERC-2010-StG_20091118
Summary Soon after new antibiotics are introduced, bacterial strains resistant to their action emerge. Recently, non-specific factors that promote the later appearance of specific mechanisms of resistance have been found. Some of these so-called global factors (as opposed to specific resistance mechanisms) emerge as major players in shaping the rate of evolution of resistance. For example, a mutation in the mismatch repair system is a global genetic factor that increases the mutation rate and therefore leads to an increased probability to evolve resistance.
In addition to global genetic factors, it is becoming clear that global phenotypic factors play a crucial role in resistance evolution. For example, activation of stress responses can also result in an elevated mutation rate and accelerated evolution of drug resistance. A natural question which arises in this context is how sub-populations of phenotypic variants differ in their evolutionary potential, and how that, in turn, affects the rate at which an entire population adapts to antibiotic stress.
I propose a multidisciplinary approach to the systematic and quantitative study of the non-specific factors that affect the mode and tempo of evolution towards antibiotic resistance. Our preliminary results indicate that the presence of dormant bacteria that survive antibiotic treatment affects the rate of resistance evolution in bacterial populations. I will exploit the established expertise of my lab using microfluidic devices for single cell analyses to track the emergence of resistance at the single-cell level, in real-time, and to study the correlation between the phenotype of single bacteria and the probability to evolve resistance. My second approach will take advantage of the recent developments in experimental evolution and high throughput sequencing and combine those with single cells observations for the systematic search of E.coli genes that affect the rate of resistance evolution. We will study replicate populations of E.coli, founded by either laboratory strains or clinical isolates, as they evolve in parallel, under antibiotic stress. Evolved populations will be compared with ancestral populations in order to identify genes and phenotypes that have changed during the evolution of antibiotic resistance. Finally, in silico evolution that simulates the experimental conditions will be developed to analyze the contribution of global factors on resistance evolution.
The evolution of antibiotic resistance is not only a fascinating demonstration of the power of evolution but also represents one of the major health threats today. I anticipate that this multidisciplinary study of the global factors that influence the evolution of resistance, from the single cell to the population level, will shed light on the mechanisms used by bacteria to accelerate evolution in general, as well as provide clues as to how to prevent the emergence of antibiotic resistance.
Summary
Soon after new antibiotics are introduced, bacterial strains resistant to their action emerge. Recently, non-specific factors that promote the later appearance of specific mechanisms of resistance have been found. Some of these so-called global factors (as opposed to specific resistance mechanisms) emerge as major players in shaping the rate of evolution of resistance. For example, a mutation in the mismatch repair system is a global genetic factor that increases the mutation rate and therefore leads to an increased probability to evolve resistance.
In addition to global genetic factors, it is becoming clear that global phenotypic factors play a crucial role in resistance evolution. For example, activation of stress responses can also result in an elevated mutation rate and accelerated evolution of drug resistance. A natural question which arises in this context is how sub-populations of phenotypic variants differ in their evolutionary potential, and how that, in turn, affects the rate at which an entire population adapts to antibiotic stress.
I propose a multidisciplinary approach to the systematic and quantitative study of the non-specific factors that affect the mode and tempo of evolution towards antibiotic resistance. Our preliminary results indicate that the presence of dormant bacteria that survive antibiotic treatment affects the rate of resistance evolution in bacterial populations. I will exploit the established expertise of my lab using microfluidic devices for single cell analyses to track the emergence of resistance at the single-cell level, in real-time, and to study the correlation between the phenotype of single bacteria and the probability to evolve resistance. My second approach will take advantage of the recent developments in experimental evolution and high throughput sequencing and combine those with single cells observations for the systematic search of E.coli genes that affect the rate of resistance evolution. We will study replicate populations of E.coli, founded by either laboratory strains or clinical isolates, as they evolve in parallel, under antibiotic stress. Evolved populations will be compared with ancestral populations in order to identify genes and phenotypes that have changed during the evolution of antibiotic resistance. Finally, in silico evolution that simulates the experimental conditions will be developed to analyze the contribution of global factors on resistance evolution.
The evolution of antibiotic resistance is not only a fascinating demonstration of the power of evolution but also represents one of the major health threats today. I anticipate that this multidisciplinary study of the global factors that influence the evolution of resistance, from the single cell to the population level, will shed light on the mechanisms used by bacteria to accelerate evolution in general, as well as provide clues as to how to prevent the emergence of antibiotic resistance.
Max ERC Funding
1 458 200 €
Duration
Start date: 2010-11-01, End date: 2015-10-31
Project acronym HEMOX
Project The male-female health-mortality paradox
Researcher (PI) Marc Luy
Host Institution (HI) OESTERREICHISCHE AKADEMIE DER WISSENSCHAFTEN
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH3, ERC-2010-StG_20091209
Summary "From the 1960s to the 1980s a common wisdom about differences between males and females in health and mortality emerged which was summarised by the well-known phrase ""women are sicker, but men die quicker"". Recently this wisdom has been increasingly questioned. Nevertheless, the general idea of a paradoxical relationship between health and mortality among women and men persists until today. The purpose of this project is to decisively advance the understanding of the paradox by demonstrating that the reverse relationship between sex on the one side and health and mortality on the other is not as paradoxical as it seems. We hypothesise that two factors are mainly responsible for causing this intuitive contradiction. First, the overall reversal in sex morbidity and sex mortality differentials occurs because conditions that figure importantly in morbidity are not very important in mortality, and vice versa. Second, it is very likely that longevity is directly related to the absolute number of life years in ill health. Thus, women show higher morbidity rates not because they are female but because they are the sex with higher life expectancy. We will test these hypotheses in a ""natural experiment"" by analysing the relationship between health and mortality among Catholic nuns and monks from Austria and Germany in comparison to women and men of the general population. Cloister studies have a long scientific tradition and provided path-breaking knowledge for human medicine and demography, including the applicant s research during the last decade. This project follows the line of this tradition and will investigate the male-female health-mortality paradox in a longitudinal setting that is as close as one can get to an ideal long-term experiment in humans."
Summary
"From the 1960s to the 1980s a common wisdom about differences between males and females in health and mortality emerged which was summarised by the well-known phrase ""women are sicker, but men die quicker"". Recently this wisdom has been increasingly questioned. Nevertheless, the general idea of a paradoxical relationship between health and mortality among women and men persists until today. The purpose of this project is to decisively advance the understanding of the paradox by demonstrating that the reverse relationship between sex on the one side and health and mortality on the other is not as paradoxical as it seems. We hypothesise that two factors are mainly responsible for causing this intuitive contradiction. First, the overall reversal in sex morbidity and sex mortality differentials occurs because conditions that figure importantly in morbidity are not very important in mortality, and vice versa. Second, it is very likely that longevity is directly related to the absolute number of life years in ill health. Thus, women show higher morbidity rates not because they are female but because they are the sex with higher life expectancy. We will test these hypotheses in a ""natural experiment"" by analysing the relationship between health and mortality among Catholic nuns and monks from Austria and Germany in comparison to women and men of the general population. Cloister studies have a long scientific tradition and provided path-breaking knowledge for human medicine and demography, including the applicant s research during the last decade. This project follows the line of this tradition and will investigate the male-female health-mortality paradox in a longitudinal setting that is as close as one can get to an ideal long-term experiment in humans."
Max ERC Funding
999 999 €
Duration
Start date: 2011-04-01, End date: 2016-09-30
Project acronym HISTANTARTSI
Project Historical memory, Antiquarian Culture and Artistic Patronage: Social Identities in the Centres of Southern Italy between the Medieval and Early Modern Period
Researcher (PI) Bianca De Divitiis
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI NAPOLI FEDERICO II
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH5, ERC-2010-StG_20091209
Summary From the 12th-century southern Italy was overrun by foreign rulers and their houses and saw fierce dynastic struggles for succession. In attempting to cope with these sudden changes and upheavels, the local urban communities continually found themselves faced by the need to legitimize and reconfirm their status through actual negotiations with the king, and eventually with the baron. In this context the procedures and methods used to construct specific
local identities take on particular importance, as do those used by individuals and families to affirm their social position. Through an interdisciplinary team the project seeks to identify the conscious and strategic use of archival and literary sources, and of local antiquities, in methods of self-representation adopted by the elite and by the local communities in the Regno di Napoli between the medieval and early modern period beginning with Campania and then extending to Puglia, Calabria, Lucania, Molise and Abruzzo. The aim of the project is to establish a balanced view of southern continental Italy and to create new instruments which will improve not only
international academic knowledge but can benefit civil society as a whole, as well as institutions in laying the foundations for a new conservation strategy to protect and manage the cultural patrimony of southern Italy, a region which has contributed significantly to the formation of a European identity. An accessible database on the Internet will be specifically designed and programmed to gather together all the data from this research pre-requisite for studying such themes, and will provide a new instrument and new prospects of research for scholars world-wide.
Summary
From the 12th-century southern Italy was overrun by foreign rulers and their houses and saw fierce dynastic struggles for succession. In attempting to cope with these sudden changes and upheavels, the local urban communities continually found themselves faced by the need to legitimize and reconfirm their status through actual negotiations with the king, and eventually with the baron. In this context the procedures and methods used to construct specific
local identities take on particular importance, as do those used by individuals and families to affirm their social position. Through an interdisciplinary team the project seeks to identify the conscious and strategic use of archival and literary sources, and of local antiquities, in methods of self-representation adopted by the elite and by the local communities in the Regno di Napoli between the medieval and early modern period beginning with Campania and then extending to Puglia, Calabria, Lucania, Molise and Abruzzo. The aim of the project is to establish a balanced view of southern continental Italy and to create new instruments which will improve not only
international academic knowledge but can benefit civil society as a whole, as well as institutions in laying the foundations for a new conservation strategy to protect and manage the cultural patrimony of southern Italy, a region which has contributed significantly to the formation of a European identity. An accessible database on the Internet will be specifically designed and programmed to gather together all the data from this research pre-requisite for studying such themes, and will provide a new instrument and new prospects of research for scholars world-wide.
Max ERC Funding
1 500 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2011-01-01, End date: 2016-05-31
Project acronym HOR.MOON
Project Moonlight-dependent Hormones Orchestrating Lunar Reproductive Periodicity and Regeneration
Researcher (PI) Florian Raible
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITAT WIEN
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), LS8, ERC-2010-StG_20091118
Summary The moon governs reproductive cycles in a broad range of marine animals, including cnidarians, polychaetes, crustaceans, echinoderms and fishes. Even outside the animals, lunar reproductive cycles have been described, such as in brown algae or foraminifers. Despite their fundamental nature, and decades of classical observations, close to nothing is known about the molecular processes that underly these lunar reproductive cycles.
We will take advantage of the recent advance in molecular resources and tools in the bristle worm Platynereis dumerilii, which has long served as a key model for classical experimental studies on lunar periodicity. The combination of modern techniques with well-founded classical observations will allow us to decipher, for the first time, the hormonal cues that are regulated by the lunar cycle and are responsible for the orchestration of gonadal maturation and trunk regeneration.
The project builds on established methodology, as well as on the first results of a successful pioneer screen and has three major aims:
(1) the functional investigation of two hormones we recently identified to be under lunar cycle control.
(2) the extension of our successful pioneer screen to understand to which extent other neurohormonal components change over the lunar phase.
(3) the identification of the elusive inhibitory brain hormone that directly acts on the gonads to inhibit premature maturation.
Together, these experiments will lead us to first significant insights into the molecular nature of the hormonal network that underlies moonlight-dependent periodicity and regeneration.
Summary
The moon governs reproductive cycles in a broad range of marine animals, including cnidarians, polychaetes, crustaceans, echinoderms and fishes. Even outside the animals, lunar reproductive cycles have been described, such as in brown algae or foraminifers. Despite their fundamental nature, and decades of classical observations, close to nothing is known about the molecular processes that underly these lunar reproductive cycles.
We will take advantage of the recent advance in molecular resources and tools in the bristle worm Platynereis dumerilii, which has long served as a key model for classical experimental studies on lunar periodicity. The combination of modern techniques with well-founded classical observations will allow us to decipher, for the first time, the hormonal cues that are regulated by the lunar cycle and are responsible for the orchestration of gonadal maturation and trunk regeneration.
The project builds on established methodology, as well as on the first results of a successful pioneer screen and has three major aims:
(1) the functional investigation of two hormones we recently identified to be under lunar cycle control.
(2) the extension of our successful pioneer screen to understand to which extent other neurohormonal components change over the lunar phase.
(3) the identification of the elusive inhibitory brain hormone that directly acts on the gonads to inhibit premature maturation.
Together, these experiments will lead us to first significant insights into the molecular nature of the hormonal network that underlies moonlight-dependent periodicity and regeneration.
Max ERC Funding
1 500 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2010-12-01, End date: 2016-07-31
Project acronym LUISE
Project An integrated socioecological approach to land-use intensity: Analyzing and mapping biophysical stocks/flows and their socioeconomic drivers
Researcher (PI) Karlheinz Erb
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITAET KLAGENFURT
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH3, ERC-2010-StG_20091209
Summary Land-use intensity is an essential aspect of the human use of terrestrial ecosystems. In the course of history, intensification of land use allowed to overcome Malthusian traps and supported population growth and im-proved diets. It can be anticipated that intensification will become even more decisive in the future, in the light of a growing world population, surges in biofuel consumption, and the simultaneous mandate to protect the world’s forests. Despite its importance, there is a lack of comprehensive, consistent, systematic, and spa-tially explicit metrics of land-use intensity. In consequence, the causal understanding of the factors, mecha-nisms, determinants and constraints underlying land intensification is unsatisfactory. This is due to the main-stream in land use research that predominantly operates with nominal scales, subdividing the Earth’s surface into discrete land cover units. This hampers the analysis of gradual changes, in particular those which are not related to changes in land cover. Intensification leads exactly to such changes. The overall goal of LUISE is the conceptualization and quantification of land use intensity and to contribute to an improved causal under-standing of land intensification. By applying and significantly extending existing methods of the material and energy flow analysis framework (MEFA), the full cycle of land intensification will be studied: Socioeco-nomic inputs to ecosystems, structural changes within ecosystems, changes in outputs of ecosystems to soci-ety, and the underlying socioeconomic constraints, feedbacks, and thresholds, from top-down macro perspec-tives as well as applying bottom-up approaches. The anticipated new empirical results and insights can allow further conceptualizations and quantifications of land modifications (land change without land cover change), and improve the understanding of the dynamic and complex interplay of society and nature that shapes spatial patterns as well as changes of land systems over time.
Summary
Land-use intensity is an essential aspect of the human use of terrestrial ecosystems. In the course of history, intensification of land use allowed to overcome Malthusian traps and supported population growth and im-proved diets. It can be anticipated that intensification will become even more decisive in the future, in the light of a growing world population, surges in biofuel consumption, and the simultaneous mandate to protect the world’s forests. Despite its importance, there is a lack of comprehensive, consistent, systematic, and spa-tially explicit metrics of land-use intensity. In consequence, the causal understanding of the factors, mecha-nisms, determinants and constraints underlying land intensification is unsatisfactory. This is due to the main-stream in land use research that predominantly operates with nominal scales, subdividing the Earth’s surface into discrete land cover units. This hampers the analysis of gradual changes, in particular those which are not related to changes in land cover. Intensification leads exactly to such changes. The overall goal of LUISE is the conceptualization and quantification of land use intensity and to contribute to an improved causal under-standing of land intensification. By applying and significantly extending existing methods of the material and energy flow analysis framework (MEFA), the full cycle of land intensification will be studied: Socioeco-nomic inputs to ecosystems, structural changes within ecosystems, changes in outputs of ecosystems to soci-ety, and the underlying socioeconomic constraints, feedbacks, and thresholds, from top-down macro perspec-tives as well as applying bottom-up approaches. The anticipated new empirical results and insights can allow further conceptualizations and quantifications of land modifications (land change without land cover change), and improve the understanding of the dynamic and complex interplay of society and nature that shapes spatial patterns as well as changes of land systems over time.
Max ERC Funding
887 121 €
Duration
Start date: 2010-10-01, End date: 2016-06-30
Project acronym MEDEA
Project Microbial Ecology of the DEep Atlantic pelagic realm
Researcher (PI) Gerhard Herndl
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITAT WIEN
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), LS8, ERC-2010-AdG_20100317
Summary The project aims at elucidating a major enigma in microbial ecology, i.e., the metabolic activity of prokaryotic communities in the deep sea under in situ pressure conditions, rather than under surface pressure conditions, as commonly done. Analysis of the global data set of prokaryotic abundance indicates that about 40% of prokaryotes reside in depth below 1000m depth with a phylogenetic composition different from that in surface waters. Using a recently fabricated high-pressure sampling and incubation system in combination with advanced tools to assess phylogenetic diversity, gene expression and single-cell activity, we will be able to resolve this enigma on a prokaryotic community level as well as on a phylotype level. This detailed knowledge on the distribution of the auto- and heterotrophic activity of deep-sea prokaryotes under in situ pressure conditions is essential to refine our view on the oceanic biogeochemical cycles, and to obtain a mechanistic understanding of the functioning of deep-sea microbial food webs.
Summary
The project aims at elucidating a major enigma in microbial ecology, i.e., the metabolic activity of prokaryotic communities in the deep sea under in situ pressure conditions, rather than under surface pressure conditions, as commonly done. Analysis of the global data set of prokaryotic abundance indicates that about 40% of prokaryotes reside in depth below 1000m depth with a phylogenetic composition different from that in surface waters. Using a recently fabricated high-pressure sampling and incubation system in combination with advanced tools to assess phylogenetic diversity, gene expression and single-cell activity, we will be able to resolve this enigma on a prokaryotic community level as well as on a phylotype level. This detailed knowledge on the distribution of the auto- and heterotrophic activity of deep-sea prokaryotes under in situ pressure conditions is essential to refine our view on the oceanic biogeochemical cycles, and to obtain a mechanistic understanding of the functioning of deep-sea microbial food webs.
Max ERC Funding
2 500 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2011-07-01, End date: 2016-06-30
