Project acronym ACrossWire
Project A Cross-Correlated Approach to Engineering Nitride Nanowires
Researcher (PI) Hannah Jane JOYCE
Host Institution (HI) THE CHANCELLOR MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), PE7, ERC-2016-STG
Summary Nanowires based on group III–nitride semiconductors exhibit outstanding potential for emerging applications in energy-efficient lighting, optoelectronics and solar energy harvesting. Nitride nanowires, tailored at the nanoscale, should overcome many of the challenges facing conventional planar nitride materials, and also add extraordinary new functionality to these materials. However, progress towards III–nitride nanowire devices has been hampered by the challenges in quantifying nanowire electrical properties using conventional contact-based measurements. Without reliable electrical transport data, it is extremely difficult to optimise nanowire growth and device design. This project aims to overcome this problem through an unconventional approach: advanced contact-free electrical measurements. Contact-free measurements, growth studies, and device studies will be cross-correlated to provide unprecedented insight into the growth mechanisms that govern nanowire electronic properties and ultimately dictate device performance. A key contact-free technique at the heart of this proposal is ultrafast terahertz conductivity spectroscopy: an advanced technique ideal for probing nanowire electrical properties. We will develop new methods to enable the full suite of contact-free (including terahertz, photoluminescence and cathodoluminescence measurements) and contact-based measurements to be performed with high spatial resolution on the same nanowires. This will provide accurate, comprehensive and cross-correlated feedback to guide growth studies and expedite the targeted development of nanowires with specified functionality. We will apply this powerful approach to tailor nanowires as photoelectrodes for solar photoelectrochemical water splitting. This is an application for which nitride nanowires have outstanding, yet unfulfilled, potential. This project will thus harness the true potential of nitride nanowires and bring them to the forefront of 21st century technology.
Summary
Nanowires based on group III–nitride semiconductors exhibit outstanding potential for emerging applications in energy-efficient lighting, optoelectronics and solar energy harvesting. Nitride nanowires, tailored at the nanoscale, should overcome many of the challenges facing conventional planar nitride materials, and also add extraordinary new functionality to these materials. However, progress towards III–nitride nanowire devices has been hampered by the challenges in quantifying nanowire electrical properties using conventional contact-based measurements. Without reliable electrical transport data, it is extremely difficult to optimise nanowire growth and device design. This project aims to overcome this problem through an unconventional approach: advanced contact-free electrical measurements. Contact-free measurements, growth studies, and device studies will be cross-correlated to provide unprecedented insight into the growth mechanisms that govern nanowire electronic properties and ultimately dictate device performance. A key contact-free technique at the heart of this proposal is ultrafast terahertz conductivity spectroscopy: an advanced technique ideal for probing nanowire electrical properties. We will develop new methods to enable the full suite of contact-free (including terahertz, photoluminescence and cathodoluminescence measurements) and contact-based measurements to be performed with high spatial resolution on the same nanowires. This will provide accurate, comprehensive and cross-correlated feedback to guide growth studies and expedite the targeted development of nanowires with specified functionality. We will apply this powerful approach to tailor nanowires as photoelectrodes for solar photoelectrochemical water splitting. This is an application for which nitride nanowires have outstanding, yet unfulfilled, potential. This project will thus harness the true potential of nitride nanowires and bring them to the forefront of 21st century technology.
Max ERC Funding
1 499 195 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-04-01, End date: 2022-03-31
Project acronym ALEXANDRIA
Project Large-Scale Formal Proof for the Working Mathematician
Researcher (PI) Lawrence PAULSON
Host Institution (HI) THE CHANCELLOR MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), PE6, ERC-2016-ADG
Summary Mathematical proofs have always been prone to error. Today, proofs can be hundreds of pages long and combine results from many specialisms, making them almost impossible to check. One solution is to deploy modern verification technology. Interactive theorem provers have demonstrated their potential as vehicles for formalising mathematics through achievements such as the verification of the Kepler Conjecture. Proofs done using such tools reach a high standard of correctness.
However, existing theorem provers are unsuitable for mathematics. Their formal proofs are unreadable. They struggle to do simple tasks, such as evaluating limits. They lack much basic mathematics, and the material they do have is difficult to locate and apply.
ALEXANDRIA will create a proof development environment attractive to working mathematicians, utilising the best technology available across computer science. Its focus will be the management and use of large-scale mathematical knowledge, both theorems and algorithms. The project will employ mathematicians to investigate the formalisation of mathematics in practice. Our already substantial formalised libraries will serve as the starting point. They will be extended and annotated to support sophisticated searches. Techniques will be borrowed from machine learning, information retrieval and natural language processing. Algorithms will be treated similarly: ALEXANDRIA will help users find and invoke the proof methods and algorithms appropriate for the task.
ALEXANDRIA will provide (1) comprehensive formal mathematical libraries; (2) search within libraries, and the mining of libraries for proof patterns; (3) automated support for the construction of large formal proofs; (4) sound and practical computer algebra tools.
ALEXANDRIA will be based on legible structured proofs. Formal proofs should be not mere code, but a machine-checkable form of communication between mathematicians.
Summary
Mathematical proofs have always been prone to error. Today, proofs can be hundreds of pages long and combine results from many specialisms, making them almost impossible to check. One solution is to deploy modern verification technology. Interactive theorem provers have demonstrated their potential as vehicles for formalising mathematics through achievements such as the verification of the Kepler Conjecture. Proofs done using such tools reach a high standard of correctness.
However, existing theorem provers are unsuitable for mathematics. Their formal proofs are unreadable. They struggle to do simple tasks, such as evaluating limits. They lack much basic mathematics, and the material they do have is difficult to locate and apply.
ALEXANDRIA will create a proof development environment attractive to working mathematicians, utilising the best technology available across computer science. Its focus will be the management and use of large-scale mathematical knowledge, both theorems and algorithms. The project will employ mathematicians to investigate the formalisation of mathematics in practice. Our already substantial formalised libraries will serve as the starting point. They will be extended and annotated to support sophisticated searches. Techniques will be borrowed from machine learning, information retrieval and natural language processing. Algorithms will be treated similarly: ALEXANDRIA will help users find and invoke the proof methods and algorithms appropriate for the task.
ALEXANDRIA will provide (1) comprehensive formal mathematical libraries; (2) search within libraries, and the mining of libraries for proof patterns; (3) automated support for the construction of large formal proofs; (4) sound and practical computer algebra tools.
ALEXANDRIA will be based on legible structured proofs. Formal proofs should be not mere code, but a machine-checkable form of communication between mathematicians.
Max ERC Funding
2 430 140 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-09-01, End date: 2022-08-31
Project acronym ALTERUMMA
Project Creating an Alternative umma: Clerical Authority and Religio-political Mobilisation in Transnational Shii Islam
Researcher (PI) Oliver Paul SCHARBRODT
Host Institution (HI) THE UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH5, ERC-2016-COG
Summary This interdisciplinary project investigates the transformation of Shii Islam in the Middle East and Europe since the 1950s. The project examines the formation of modern Shii communal identities and the role Shii clerical authorities and their transnational networks have played in their religio-political mobilisation. The volatile situation post-Arab Spring, the rise of militant movements such as ISIS and the sectarianisation of geopolitical conflicts in the Middle East have intensified efforts to forge distinct Shii communal identities and to conceive Shii Muslims as part of an alternative umma (Islamic community). The project focusses on Iran, Iraq and significant but unexplored diasporic links to Syria, Kuwait and Britain. In response to the rise of modern nation-states in the Middle East, Shii clerical authorities resorted to a wide range of activities: (a) articulating intellectual responses to the ideologies underpinning modern Middle Eastern nation-states, (b) forming political parties and other platforms of socio-political activism and (c) using various forms of cultural production by systematising and promoting Shii ritual practices and utilising visual art, poetry and new media.
The project yields a perspectival shift on the factors that led to Shii communal mobilisation by:
- Analysing unacknowledged intellectual responses of Shii clerical authorities to the secular or sectarian ideologies of post-colonial nation-states and to the current sectarianisation of geopolitics in the Middle East.
- Emphasising the central role of diasporic networks in the Middle East and Europe in mobilising Shii communities and in influencing discourses and agendas of clerical authorities based in Iraq and Iran.
- Exploring new modes of cultural production in the form of a modern Shii aesthetics articulated in ritual practices, visual art, poetry and new media and thus creating a more holistic narrative on Shii religio-political mobilisation.
Summary
This interdisciplinary project investigates the transformation of Shii Islam in the Middle East and Europe since the 1950s. The project examines the formation of modern Shii communal identities and the role Shii clerical authorities and their transnational networks have played in their religio-political mobilisation. The volatile situation post-Arab Spring, the rise of militant movements such as ISIS and the sectarianisation of geopolitical conflicts in the Middle East have intensified efforts to forge distinct Shii communal identities and to conceive Shii Muslims as part of an alternative umma (Islamic community). The project focusses on Iran, Iraq and significant but unexplored diasporic links to Syria, Kuwait and Britain. In response to the rise of modern nation-states in the Middle East, Shii clerical authorities resorted to a wide range of activities: (a) articulating intellectual responses to the ideologies underpinning modern Middle Eastern nation-states, (b) forming political parties and other platforms of socio-political activism and (c) using various forms of cultural production by systematising and promoting Shii ritual practices and utilising visual art, poetry and new media.
The project yields a perspectival shift on the factors that led to Shii communal mobilisation by:
- Analysing unacknowledged intellectual responses of Shii clerical authorities to the secular or sectarian ideologies of post-colonial nation-states and to the current sectarianisation of geopolitics in the Middle East.
- Emphasising the central role of diasporic networks in the Middle East and Europe in mobilising Shii communities and in influencing discourses and agendas of clerical authorities based in Iraq and Iran.
- Exploring new modes of cultural production in the form of a modern Shii aesthetics articulated in ritual practices, visual art, poetry and new media and thus creating a more holistic narrative on Shii religio-political mobilisation.
Max ERC Funding
1 952 374 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-01-01, End date: 2022-12-31
Project acronym ARCTIC CULT
Project ARCTIC CULTURES: SITES OF COLLECTION IN THE FORMATION OF THE EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN NORTHLANDS
Researcher (PI) Richard Charles POWELL
Host Institution (HI) THE CHANCELLOR MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH5, ERC-2016-COG
Summary The Arctic has risen to global attention in recent years, as it has been reconfigured through debates about global environmental change, resource extraction and disputes over sovereign rights. Within these discourses, little attention has been paid to the cultures of the Arctic. Indeed, it often seems as if the Circumpolar Arctic in global public understanding remains framed as a 'natural region' - that is, a place where the environment dominates the creation of culture. This framing has consequences for the region, because through this the Arctic becomes constructed as a space where people are absent. This proposal aims to discover how and why this might be so.
The proposal argues that this construction of the Arctic emerged from the exploration of the region by Europeans and North Americans and their contacts with indigenous people from the middle of the eighteenth century. Particular texts, cartographic representations and objects were collected and returned to sites like London, Copenhagen, Berlin and Philadelphia. The construction of the Arctic thereby became entwined within the growth of colonial museum cultures and, indeed, western modernity. This project aims to delineate the networks and collecting cultures involved in this creation of Arctic Cultures. It will bring repositories in colonial metropoles into dialogue with sites of collection in the Arctic by tracing the contexts of discovery and memorialisation. In doing so, it aspires to a new understanding of the consequences of certain forms of colonial representation for debates about the Circumpolar Arctic today.
The project involves research by the Principal Investigator and four Post Doctoral Researchers at museums, archives, libraries and repositories across Europe and North America, as well as in Greenland and the Canadian Arctic. A Project Assistant based in Oxford will help facilitate the completion of the research.
Summary
The Arctic has risen to global attention in recent years, as it has been reconfigured through debates about global environmental change, resource extraction and disputes over sovereign rights. Within these discourses, little attention has been paid to the cultures of the Arctic. Indeed, it often seems as if the Circumpolar Arctic in global public understanding remains framed as a 'natural region' - that is, a place where the environment dominates the creation of culture. This framing has consequences for the region, because through this the Arctic becomes constructed as a space where people are absent. This proposal aims to discover how and why this might be so.
The proposal argues that this construction of the Arctic emerged from the exploration of the region by Europeans and North Americans and their contacts with indigenous people from the middle of the eighteenth century. Particular texts, cartographic representations and objects were collected and returned to sites like London, Copenhagen, Berlin and Philadelphia. The construction of the Arctic thereby became entwined within the growth of colonial museum cultures and, indeed, western modernity. This project aims to delineate the networks and collecting cultures involved in this creation of Arctic Cultures. It will bring repositories in colonial metropoles into dialogue with sites of collection in the Arctic by tracing the contexts of discovery and memorialisation. In doing so, it aspires to a new understanding of the consequences of certain forms of colonial representation for debates about the Circumpolar Arctic today.
The project involves research by the Principal Investigator and four Post Doctoral Researchers at museums, archives, libraries and repositories across Europe and North America, as well as in Greenland and the Canadian Arctic. A Project Assistant based in Oxford will help facilitate the completion of the research.
Max ERC Funding
1 996 250 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-10-01, End date: 2022-09-30
Project acronym CASCAde
Project Confidentiality-preserving Security Assurance
Researcher (PI) Thomas GROSS
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITY OF NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), PE6, ERC-2016-STG
Summary "This proposal aims to create a new generation of security assurance. It investigates whether one can certify an inter-connected dynamically changing system in such a way that one can prove its security properties without disclosing sensitive information about the system's blueprint.
This has several compelling advantages. First, the security of large-scale dynamically changing systems will be significantly improved. Second, we can prove properties of topologies, hosts and users who participate in transactions in one go, while keeping sensitive information confidential. Third, we can prove the integrity of graph data structures to others, while maintaining their their confidentiality. This will benefit EU governments and citizens through the increased security of critical systems.
The proposal pursues the main research hypothesis that usable confidentiality-preserving security assurance will trigger a paradigm shift in security and dependability. It will pursue this objective by the creation of new cryptographic techniques to certify and prove properties of graph data structures. A preliminary investigation in 2015 showed that graph signature schemes are indeed feasible. The essence of this solution can be traced back to my earlier research on highly efficient attribute encodings for anonymous credential schemes in 2008.
However, the invention of graph signature schemes only clears one obstacle in a long journey to create a new generation of security assurance systems. There are still many complex obstacles, first and foremost, assuring ""soundness"" in the sense that integrity proofs a verifier accepts translate to the state of the system at that time. The work program involves six WPs: 1) to develop graph signatures and new cryptographic primitives; 2) to establish cross-system soundness; 3) to handle scale and change; 4) to establish human trust and usability; 5) to create new architectures; and 6) to test prototypes in practice."
Summary
"This proposal aims to create a new generation of security assurance. It investigates whether one can certify an inter-connected dynamically changing system in such a way that one can prove its security properties without disclosing sensitive information about the system's blueprint.
This has several compelling advantages. First, the security of large-scale dynamically changing systems will be significantly improved. Second, we can prove properties of topologies, hosts and users who participate in transactions in one go, while keeping sensitive information confidential. Third, we can prove the integrity of graph data structures to others, while maintaining their their confidentiality. This will benefit EU governments and citizens through the increased security of critical systems.
The proposal pursues the main research hypothesis that usable confidentiality-preserving security assurance will trigger a paradigm shift in security and dependability. It will pursue this objective by the creation of new cryptographic techniques to certify and prove properties of graph data structures. A preliminary investigation in 2015 showed that graph signature schemes are indeed feasible. The essence of this solution can be traced back to my earlier research on highly efficient attribute encodings for anonymous credential schemes in 2008.
However, the invention of graph signature schemes only clears one obstacle in a long journey to create a new generation of security assurance systems. There are still many complex obstacles, first and foremost, assuring ""soundness"" in the sense that integrity proofs a verifier accepts translate to the state of the system at that time. The work program involves six WPs: 1) to develop graph signatures and new cryptographic primitives; 2) to establish cross-system soundness; 3) to handle scale and change; 4) to establish human trust and usability; 5) to create new architectures; and 6) to test prototypes in practice."
Max ERC Funding
1 485 643 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-11-01, End date: 2022-10-31
Project acronym COMPLEX
Project The Degradation of Complex Modern Polymeric Objects in Heritage Collections: A System Dynamics Approach
Researcher (PI) Katherine CURRAN
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH5, ERC-2016-STG
Summary By viewing a scientific problem through the lens of heritage, COMPLEX will create an entirely new cross-disciplinary vision for understanding and modelling polymer degradation and build a world leading research team studying the degradation of modern polymeric objects in collections. Rather than focussing on specific chemical or physical processes, as has been done in the past, COMPLEX will consider polymeric objects as almost akin to living organisms, and by using a system dynamics approach will model objects in their environments in a way that reflects their real complexity, with multiple, inter-connecting interactions between material properties and environmental parameters.
As a polymer chemist, this project has been inspired by my 4 years of experience in the field of heritage, in particular by experiencing the problems raised by the conservation of modern polymeric objects such as plastics. The development of modern polymers during the 19th and 20th centuries has changed history and society and they are a part of our material heritage that it is essential to conserve for future generations. However, these objects are at risk due to their instability and a lack of knowledge within the museum sector as to their degradation behaviour.
System dynamics models will be developed incorporating multiple chemical and physical interactions between the components of polymeric objects and environmental parameters such as relative humidity or light. These will be used to predict the degradation behaviour of objects over time, to identify key parameters that are correlated to object change and provide practical solutions for heritage professionals. Above all, COMPLEX will provide a new way of looking at polymer degradation, that can be applied across a wide range of fields, including medicine, waste management and industry.
Summary
By viewing a scientific problem through the lens of heritage, COMPLEX will create an entirely new cross-disciplinary vision for understanding and modelling polymer degradation and build a world leading research team studying the degradation of modern polymeric objects in collections. Rather than focussing on specific chemical or physical processes, as has been done in the past, COMPLEX will consider polymeric objects as almost akin to living organisms, and by using a system dynamics approach will model objects in their environments in a way that reflects their real complexity, with multiple, inter-connecting interactions between material properties and environmental parameters.
As a polymer chemist, this project has been inspired by my 4 years of experience in the field of heritage, in particular by experiencing the problems raised by the conservation of modern polymeric objects such as plastics. The development of modern polymers during the 19th and 20th centuries has changed history and society and they are a part of our material heritage that it is essential to conserve for future generations. However, these objects are at risk due to their instability and a lack of knowledge within the museum sector as to their degradation behaviour.
System dynamics models will be developed incorporating multiple chemical and physical interactions between the components of polymeric objects and environmental parameters such as relative humidity or light. These will be used to predict the degradation behaviour of objects over time, to identify key parameters that are correlated to object change and provide practical solutions for heritage professionals. Above all, COMPLEX will provide a new way of looking at polymer degradation, that can be applied across a wide range of fields, including medicine, waste management and industry.
Max ERC Funding
1 499 394 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-04-01, End date: 2022-03-31
Project acronym DIADEM
Project Domain-centric Intelligent Automated Data Extraction Methodology
Researcher (PI) Georg Gottlob
Host Institution (HI) THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), PE6, ERC-2009-AdG
Summary This proposal is in the area of automated web data extraction and web data management. The aim of our project is to provide the logical, methodological, and algorithmic foundations for the knowledge-based extraction of structured data from web sites belonging to specific domains, such as estate agents, restaurants, travel agencies, car dealers, and so on. One core part of this will be a comprehensive multi-dimensional logical data model that will be used to simultaneously represent both the content of a large website, its structure, inferred user-interaction patterns and all meta-information and knowledge (factual and rule-based) that is necessary to automatically perform the desired extraction tasks. I envision that, based on these new foundations, we will be able to build extremely powerful systems that autonomously explore websites of a given domain, understand their structure and extract and output richly structured data in formats such as XML or RDF. We aim at systems that take as input a URL of a website in a given domain, automatically explore this site and deliver as output a structured data set containing all the relevant information present on that site. As an example, imagine a system specialized in the real-estate domain, that receives as input the URL of any real-estate agent, explores the site automatically and outputs richly structured records of all properties that are currently advertised for sale or for rent on the many web pages of this site. We plan to develop and implement at least two such systems for two different domains, including the one mentioned. The breakthrough in automatic data extraction that we are striving for would enable a quantum leap for two interrelated technologies which are the hottest next topics in web search: vertical search, that is, web search in specialized domains, and object search, that is, the search for web data objects rather than web pages.
Summary
This proposal is in the area of automated web data extraction and web data management. The aim of our project is to provide the logical, methodological, and algorithmic foundations for the knowledge-based extraction of structured data from web sites belonging to specific domains, such as estate agents, restaurants, travel agencies, car dealers, and so on. One core part of this will be a comprehensive multi-dimensional logical data model that will be used to simultaneously represent both the content of a large website, its structure, inferred user-interaction patterns and all meta-information and knowledge (factual and rule-based) that is necessary to automatically perform the desired extraction tasks. I envision that, based on these new foundations, we will be able to build extremely powerful systems that autonomously explore websites of a given domain, understand their structure and extract and output richly structured data in formats such as XML or RDF. We aim at systems that take as input a URL of a website in a given domain, automatically explore this site and deliver as output a structured data set containing all the relevant information present on that site. As an example, imagine a system specialized in the real-estate domain, that receives as input the URL of any real-estate agent, explores the site automatically and outputs richly structured records of all properties that are currently advertised for sale or for rent on the many web pages of this site. We plan to develop and implement at least two such systems for two different domains, including the one mentioned. The breakthrough in automatic data extraction that we are striving for would enable a quantum leap for two interrelated technologies which are the hottest next topics in web search: vertical search, that is, web search in specialized domains, and object search, that is, the search for web data objects rather than web pages.
Max ERC Funding
2 402 846 €
Duration
Start date: 2010-04-01, End date: 2015-03-31
Project acronym ENERGY ETHICS
Project The Ethics of Oil: Finance Moralities and Environmental Politics in the Global Oil Economy
Researcher (PI) METTE HIGH
Host Institution (HI) THE UNIVERSITY COURT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREWS
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH5, ERC-2016-STG
Summary In October 2014, the Chairman of the Bank of England Mark Carney warned that many oil reserves cannot be developed. If so, they would contribute so significantly to increased greenhouse gas emissions that international targets to avoid dangerous levels of global warming would be exceeded. However, stock valuations of oil companies assume that all proven and probable reserves can indeed be produced. Amounting to a potentially enormous debt overhang, the Bank of England has launched an enquiry into the threat of a crisis similar to the subprime mortgage crash, known as the ‘carbon bubble’. This looming crisis with its ‘stranded assets’ raises urgent questions about the conflicting dynamics between finance moralities and environmental politics at a time of oil dependency and an uncertain climate future. Grounded in ethnographic fieldwork with oil companies in the US and Norway, energy analysts in the UK and the US, and fossil fuel divestment movements in Germany and the UK, ENERGY ETHICS will develop a new framework for understanding the relationship between oil, money and climate change that counters the prevalent tendency to interpret these issues through aggregated normative systemic analysis only. Taking its starting point in people’s own perceptions of and direct involvement in the oil economy, it will offer a major step forward in understanding how people in positions of influence within the oil economy make financial and ethical valuations of oil. This will contribute to public stakeholder dialogue and wider transdisciplinary engagements. Focusing on oil and its financialization, ENERGY ETHICS has three main research objectives: 1) to examine how people positioned strategically in relation to the global production of oil conceptualise and influence the oil market; 2) to understand the linkages and frictions between these different valuations of oil; and 3) to investigate how oil valuations relate to political reforms and new climate economic initiatives.
Summary
In October 2014, the Chairman of the Bank of England Mark Carney warned that many oil reserves cannot be developed. If so, they would contribute so significantly to increased greenhouse gas emissions that international targets to avoid dangerous levels of global warming would be exceeded. However, stock valuations of oil companies assume that all proven and probable reserves can indeed be produced. Amounting to a potentially enormous debt overhang, the Bank of England has launched an enquiry into the threat of a crisis similar to the subprime mortgage crash, known as the ‘carbon bubble’. This looming crisis with its ‘stranded assets’ raises urgent questions about the conflicting dynamics between finance moralities and environmental politics at a time of oil dependency and an uncertain climate future. Grounded in ethnographic fieldwork with oil companies in the US and Norway, energy analysts in the UK and the US, and fossil fuel divestment movements in Germany and the UK, ENERGY ETHICS will develop a new framework for understanding the relationship between oil, money and climate change that counters the prevalent tendency to interpret these issues through aggregated normative systemic analysis only. Taking its starting point in people’s own perceptions of and direct involvement in the oil economy, it will offer a major step forward in understanding how people in positions of influence within the oil economy make financial and ethical valuations of oil. This will contribute to public stakeholder dialogue and wider transdisciplinary engagements. Focusing on oil and its financialization, ENERGY ETHICS has three main research objectives: 1) to examine how people positioned strategically in relation to the global production of oil conceptualise and influence the oil market; 2) to understand the linkages and frictions between these different valuations of oil; and 3) to investigate how oil valuations relate to political reforms and new climate economic initiatives.
Max ERC Funding
1 498 052 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-07-01, End date: 2022-06-30
Project acronym EPIC
Project Evolving Program Improvement Collaborators
Researcher (PI) Mark HARMAN
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), PE6, ERC-2016-ADG
Summary EPIC will automatically construct Evolutionary Program Improvement Collaborators (called Epi-Collaborators) that suggest code changes that improve software according to multiple functional and non-functional objectives. The Epi-Collaborator suggestions will include transplantation of code from a donor system to a host, grafting of entirely new features `grown' (evolved) by the Epi-Collaborator, and identification and optimisation of tuneable `deep' parameters (that were previously unexposed and therefore unexploited).
A key feature of the EPIC approach is that all of these suggestions will be underpinned by automatically-constructed quantitative evidence that justifies, explains and documents improvements. EPIC aims to introduce a new way of developing software, as a collaboration between human and machine, exploiting the complementary strengths of each; the human has domain and contextual insights, while the machine has the ability to intelligently search large search spaces. The EPIC approach directly tackles the emergent challenges of multiplicity: optimising for multiple competing and conflicting objectives and platforms with multiple software versions.
Keywords:
Search Based Software Engineering (SBSE),
Evolutionary Computing,
Software Testing,
Genetic Algorithms,
Genetic Programming.
Summary
EPIC will automatically construct Evolutionary Program Improvement Collaborators (called Epi-Collaborators) that suggest code changes that improve software according to multiple functional and non-functional objectives. The Epi-Collaborator suggestions will include transplantation of code from a donor system to a host, grafting of entirely new features `grown' (evolved) by the Epi-Collaborator, and identification and optimisation of tuneable `deep' parameters (that were previously unexposed and therefore unexploited).
A key feature of the EPIC approach is that all of these suggestions will be underpinned by automatically-constructed quantitative evidence that justifies, explains and documents improvements. EPIC aims to introduce a new way of developing software, as a collaboration between human and machine, exploiting the complementary strengths of each; the human has domain and contextual insights, while the machine has the ability to intelligently search large search spaces. The EPIC approach directly tackles the emergent challenges of multiplicity: optimising for multiple competing and conflicting objectives and platforms with multiple software versions.
Keywords:
Search Based Software Engineering (SBSE),
Evolutionary Computing,
Software Testing,
Genetic Algorithms,
Genetic Programming.
Max ERC Funding
2 159 035 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-10-01, End date: 2022-09-30
Project acronym EyeCode
Project Perceptual encoding of high fidelity light fields
Researcher (PI) Rafal Konrad MANTIUK
Host Institution (HI) THE CHANCELLOR MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), PE6, ERC-2016-COG
Summary One of the grand challenges of computer graphics has been to generate images indistinguishable from photographs for a naïve observer. As this challenge is mostly completed and computer generated imagery starts to replace photographs (product catalogues, special effects in cinema), the next grand challenge is to produce imagery that is indistinguishable from the real-world.
Tremendous progress in capture, manipulation and display technologies opens the potential to achieve this new challenge (at the research stage) in the next 5-10 years. Electronic displays offer sufficient resolution, frame rate, dynamic range, colour gamut and, in some configurations, can produce binocular and focal depth cues. However, most of the work done in this area ignores or does not sufficiently address one of the key aspects of this problem - the performance and limitations of the human visual system.
The objective of this project is to characterise and model the performance and limitations of the human visual system when observing complex dynamic 3D scenes. The scene will span a high dynamic range (HDR) of luminance and provide binocular and focal depth cues. In technical terms, the project aims to create a visual model and difference metric for high dynamic range light fields (HDR-LFs). The visual metric will replace tedious subjective testing and provide the first automated method that can optimize encoding and processing of HDR-LF data.
Perceptually realistic video will impose enormous storage and processing requirements compared to traditional video. The bandwidth of such rich visual content will be the main bottleneck for new imaging and display technologies. Therefore, the final objective of this project is to use the new visual metric to derive an efficient and approximately perceptually uniform encoding of HDR-LFs. Such encoding will radically reduce storage and bandwidth requirements and will pave the way for future highly realistic image and video content.
Summary
One of the grand challenges of computer graphics has been to generate images indistinguishable from photographs for a naïve observer. As this challenge is mostly completed and computer generated imagery starts to replace photographs (product catalogues, special effects in cinema), the next grand challenge is to produce imagery that is indistinguishable from the real-world.
Tremendous progress in capture, manipulation and display technologies opens the potential to achieve this new challenge (at the research stage) in the next 5-10 years. Electronic displays offer sufficient resolution, frame rate, dynamic range, colour gamut and, in some configurations, can produce binocular and focal depth cues. However, most of the work done in this area ignores or does not sufficiently address one of the key aspects of this problem - the performance and limitations of the human visual system.
The objective of this project is to characterise and model the performance and limitations of the human visual system when observing complex dynamic 3D scenes. The scene will span a high dynamic range (HDR) of luminance and provide binocular and focal depth cues. In technical terms, the project aims to create a visual model and difference metric for high dynamic range light fields (HDR-LFs). The visual metric will replace tedious subjective testing and provide the first automated method that can optimize encoding and processing of HDR-LF data.
Perceptually realistic video will impose enormous storage and processing requirements compared to traditional video. The bandwidth of such rich visual content will be the main bottleneck for new imaging and display technologies. Therefore, the final objective of this project is to use the new visual metric to derive an efficient and approximately perceptually uniform encoding of HDR-LFs. Such encoding will radically reduce storage and bandwidth requirements and will pave the way for future highly realistic image and video content.
Max ERC Funding
1 868 855 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-07-01, End date: 2022-06-30
