Project acronym MINOS
Project Microbial Network Organisation
Researcher (PI) Tron Frede Thingstad
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITETET I BERGEN
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), LS8, ERC-2009-AdG
Summary The project faces the problem of handling complexity in the microbial part of the marine pelagic food web. The basic idea is that there is a generic structure created by the interactions between three fundamental life strategies - competition, defense and predation/parasitism. This generic structure links the life strategies to central system features such as biodiversity, biogeochemistry, population dynamics and evolution. The structure repeats itself and excert control over phenomena from microdiversity within prokaryotic species to basin scale biogeochemistry. It thus it thus creates self-similarity as in fractal theory, generating complexity and intricate patterns at many levels from simple rules. The project has a theoretical part where individual based models will be used to represent life strategies, adaption and evolution at the cell level - allowing microbial diversity to evolve as a product of the models. The theoretical work will be challenged with experimental work at two levels: the effect of host-virus interactions on biodiversity within microbial communities, and the effect of predation on structuring the balance between communities of osmotrophic microorganisms (bacteria and phytoplankton).
Summary
The project faces the problem of handling complexity in the microbial part of the marine pelagic food web. The basic idea is that there is a generic structure created by the interactions between three fundamental life strategies - competition, defense and predation/parasitism. This generic structure links the life strategies to central system features such as biodiversity, biogeochemistry, population dynamics and evolution. The structure repeats itself and excert control over phenomena from microdiversity within prokaryotic species to basin scale biogeochemistry. It thus it thus creates self-similarity as in fractal theory, generating complexity and intricate patterns at many levels from simple rules. The project has a theoretical part where individual based models will be used to represent life strategies, adaption and evolution at the cell level - allowing microbial diversity to evolve as a product of the models. The theoretical work will be challenged with experimental work at two levels: the effect of host-virus interactions on biodiversity within microbial communities, and the effect of predation on structuring the balance between communities of osmotrophic microorganisms (bacteria and phytoplankton).
Max ERC Funding
2 499 937 €
Duration
Start date: 2010-06-01, End date: 2015-05-31
Project acronym PPP
Project Plurals, Predicates, and Paradox: Towards a Type-Free Account
Researcher (PI) Øystein Linnebo
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITETET I OSLO
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH4, ERC-2009-StG
Summary This project aims to transform our understanding of the logical paradoxes, their solution and significance for mathematics, philosophy and semantics. It seeks to show that some of the key inferences in the paradoxes should not uncritically be blocked, as is customary, but rather be tamed and put to valuable mathematical, philosophical and semantic use. By adopting a richer logical framework than usual, the paradoxes can be transformed from threats to valuable sources of insight. When discovered at the turn of the previous century, the paradoxes caused a foundational crisis in mathematics. Many logicians and philosophers now believe the crisis has been resolved. This project denies that an acceptable resolution has been found and aims to do better. A strong push remains towards paradox. This push arises from the widespread use of (and need for) higher-order logics (HOL), which allow quantification into the positions of predicates or plural noun phrases. Phase I seeks to reveal greater similarities between HOL and set theory than generally appreciated. Phase II explores four arguments that HOL collapses to first-order logic, i.e. that every higher-order entity defines a corresponding first-order entity. These arguments are generally ignored as they threaten to reintroduce the paradoxes. But we show that a properly circumscribed form of collapse is a valuable source of mathematical and semantic insight. Phase III examines controlled forms of collapse using notions of modality and groundedness. This enables us to motivate ZF set theory and valuable semantic theories, explain the nature of cognition about sets and properties, and show that mathematics cannot be fully extensionalized. Phase IV applies these insights to solve the paradoxes and criticize influential uses of HOL.
Summary
This project aims to transform our understanding of the logical paradoxes, their solution and significance for mathematics, philosophy and semantics. It seeks to show that some of the key inferences in the paradoxes should not uncritically be blocked, as is customary, but rather be tamed and put to valuable mathematical, philosophical and semantic use. By adopting a richer logical framework than usual, the paradoxes can be transformed from threats to valuable sources of insight. When discovered at the turn of the previous century, the paradoxes caused a foundational crisis in mathematics. Many logicians and philosophers now believe the crisis has been resolved. This project denies that an acceptable resolution has been found and aims to do better. A strong push remains towards paradox. This push arises from the widespread use of (and need for) higher-order logics (HOL), which allow quantification into the positions of predicates or plural noun phrases. Phase I seeks to reveal greater similarities between HOL and set theory than generally appreciated. Phase II explores four arguments that HOL collapses to first-order logic, i.e. that every higher-order entity defines a corresponding first-order entity. These arguments are generally ignored as they threaten to reintroduce the paradoxes. But we show that a properly circumscribed form of collapse is a valuable source of mathematical and semantic insight. Phase III examines controlled forms of collapse using notions of modality and groundedness. This enables us to motivate ZF set theory and valuable semantic theories, explain the nature of cognition about sets and properties, and show that mathematics cannot be fully extensionalized. Phase IV applies these insights to solve the paradoxes and criticize influential uses of HOL.
Max ERC Funding
940 655 €
Duration
Start date: 2010-01-01, End date: 2013-12-31
Project acronym TRACSYMBOLS
Project Tracing the evolution of symbolically mediated behaviours within variable environments in Europe and southern Africa
Researcher (PI) Christopher Stuart Henshilwood
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITETET I BERGEN
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH6, ERC-2009-AdG
Summary The aim of TRACSYMBOLS is to examine how key behavioural innovations emerged among Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis in southern Africa and Europe respectively, and explore whether and how environmental variability influenced this development between 180 25 ka [Marine Isotope Stages (MIS) 6 31. To achieve this goal the PI will develop a new research team that for the first time will combine archaeological results, original multi-proxy palaeoenvironmental data, and state-of-the-art climatic simulations for two continents. A dedicated biocomputational algorithm will be applied to this body of data to test the hypothesis that key cultural developments and discontinuities associated with early H. sapiens and Neanderthals were affected by climate. To achieve this goal we will: " Conduct new archaeological excavations at two MSA sites in De Hoop Nature Reserve, southern Cape located in an area associated with the earliest development of H. sapiens behaviour and in the promising >100 ka MSA levels at Blombos Cave, South Africa; " Apply innovative methods to the analysis of early symbolic and complex material culture of H. sapiens and Neanderthals, including abstract engravings, pigments, personal ornaments and stylised bone tools; " Reconstruct climate, vegetation, and fire regime changes in Europe and southern Africa for each species by combining the analysis of multiple proxies from marine and terrestrial archives with high resolution palaeoclimatic simulations; " Incorporate archaeological and palaeoclimatic data into a novel bio-computational architecture (Genetic Algorithm for Rule Set Prediction: GARP) that allows for the reconstruction, quantification and comparison of the ecological niches exploited by human populations within each climatic phase.
Summary
The aim of TRACSYMBOLS is to examine how key behavioural innovations emerged among Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis in southern Africa and Europe respectively, and explore whether and how environmental variability influenced this development between 180 25 ka [Marine Isotope Stages (MIS) 6 31. To achieve this goal the PI will develop a new research team that for the first time will combine archaeological results, original multi-proxy palaeoenvironmental data, and state-of-the-art climatic simulations for two continents. A dedicated biocomputational algorithm will be applied to this body of data to test the hypothesis that key cultural developments and discontinuities associated with early H. sapiens and Neanderthals were affected by climate. To achieve this goal we will: " Conduct new archaeological excavations at two MSA sites in De Hoop Nature Reserve, southern Cape located in an area associated with the earliest development of H. sapiens behaviour and in the promising >100 ka MSA levels at Blombos Cave, South Africa; " Apply innovative methods to the analysis of early symbolic and complex material culture of H. sapiens and Neanderthals, including abstract engravings, pigments, personal ornaments and stylised bone tools; " Reconstruct climate, vegetation, and fire regime changes in Europe and southern Africa for each species by combining the analysis of multiple proxies from marine and terrestrial archives with high resolution palaeoclimatic simulations; " Incorporate archaeological and palaeoclimatic data into a novel bio-computational architecture (Genetic Algorithm for Rule Set Prediction: GARP) that allows for the reconstruction, quantification and comparison of the ecological niches exploited by human populations within each climatic phase.
Max ERC Funding
2 500 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2010-04-01, End date: 2015-03-31
Project acronym VOICE
Project """Hearing voices"" - From cognition to brain systems"
Researcher (PI) Kenneth Hugdahl
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITETET I BERGEN
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH4, ERC-2009-AdG
Summary The experience of "hearing voices", i. e. auditory hallucinations in the absence of an external acoustic input is a perplexing phenomenon. In addition to being a defining characteristic of schizophrenia, experiences of "hearing voices" may be more common in the general population than what we normally think, which poses a theoretical challenge from a neuropsychological point of view. The overall goal is to track auditory hallucinations from the cognitive (phenomenological) to the neuronal (brain systems and synaptic) levels of explanation, by drawing on my previous research on hemispheric asymmetry and attention-modulation of dichotic listening and functional neuroimaging. I now suggest a new model for explaining "hearing voices" in patients and in healthy individuals. From the phenomenology of what patients and healthy individuals "hearing voices" actually report led me to question current models and theories that auditory hallucinations are "inner speech" or "traumatic memories". Since both patients and healthy individuals "hearing voices" subjectively report experiencing someone "speaking to them" it seems that a perceptual model would better fit the actual phenomenology. A perceptual model can however not explain why patients and healthy individuals differ in the way they cope with and interpret the "voice". An expanded model is therefore advanced that sees auditory hallucinations as a break-down of the dynamic interplay between bottom-up (perceptual) and top-down (inhibitory control) cognitive processes. It is suggested that while both groups show deficient perceptual processing, the patients in addition have impaired inhibitory control functions which prevents them from interpreting the "voices" as coming from inner thought processes. A series of experiments are proposed to test the model.
Summary
The experience of "hearing voices", i. e. auditory hallucinations in the absence of an external acoustic input is a perplexing phenomenon. In addition to being a defining characteristic of schizophrenia, experiences of "hearing voices" may be more common in the general population than what we normally think, which poses a theoretical challenge from a neuropsychological point of view. The overall goal is to track auditory hallucinations from the cognitive (phenomenological) to the neuronal (brain systems and synaptic) levels of explanation, by drawing on my previous research on hemispheric asymmetry and attention-modulation of dichotic listening and functional neuroimaging. I now suggest a new model for explaining "hearing voices" in patients and in healthy individuals. From the phenomenology of what patients and healthy individuals "hearing voices" actually report led me to question current models and theories that auditory hallucinations are "inner speech" or "traumatic memories". Since both patients and healthy individuals "hearing voices" subjectively report experiencing someone "speaking to them" it seems that a perceptual model would better fit the actual phenomenology. A perceptual model can however not explain why patients and healthy individuals differ in the way they cope with and interpret the "voice". An expanded model is therefore advanced that sees auditory hallucinations as a break-down of the dynamic interplay between bottom-up (perceptual) and top-down (inhibitory control) cognitive processes. It is suggested that while both groups show deficient perceptual processing, the patients in addition have impaired inhibitory control functions which prevents them from interpreting the "voices" as coming from inner thought processes. A series of experiments are proposed to test the model.
Max ERC Funding
2 281 572 €
Duration
Start date: 2010-07-01, End date: 2015-06-30
