Project acronym AfricanWomen
Project Women in Africa
Researcher (PI) catherine GUIRKINGER
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITE DE NAMUR ASBL
Country Belgium
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH1, ERC-2017-STG
Summary Rates of domestic violence and the relative risk of premature death for women are higher in sub-Saharan Africa than in any other region. Yet we know remarkably little about the economic forces, incentives and constraints that drive discrimination against women in this region, making it hard to identify policy levers to address the problem. This project will help fill this gap.
I will investigate gender discrimination from two complementary perspectives. First, through the lens of economic history, I will investigate the forces driving trends in women’s relative well-being since slavery. To quantify the evolution of well-being of sub-Saharan women relative to men, I will use three types of historical data: anthropometric indicators (relative height), vital statistics (to compute numbers of missing women), and outcomes of formal and informal family law disputes. I will then investigate how major economic developments and changes in family laws differentially affected women’s welfare across ethnic groups with different norms on women’s roles and rights.
Second, using intra-household economic models, I will provide new insights into domestic violence and gender bias in access to crucial resources in present-day Africa. I will develop a new household model that incorporates gender identity and endogenous outside options to explore the relationship between women’s empowerment and the use of violence. Using the notion of strategic delegation, I will propose a new rationale for the separation of budgets often observed in African households and generate predictions of how improvements in women’s outside options affect welfare. Finally, with first hand data, I will investigate intra-household differences in nutrition and work effort in times of food shortage from the points of view of efficiency and equity. I will use activity trackers as an innovative means of collecting high quality data on work effort and thus overcome data limitations restricting the existing literature
Summary
Rates of domestic violence and the relative risk of premature death for women are higher in sub-Saharan Africa than in any other region. Yet we know remarkably little about the economic forces, incentives and constraints that drive discrimination against women in this region, making it hard to identify policy levers to address the problem. This project will help fill this gap.
I will investigate gender discrimination from two complementary perspectives. First, through the lens of economic history, I will investigate the forces driving trends in women’s relative well-being since slavery. To quantify the evolution of well-being of sub-Saharan women relative to men, I will use three types of historical data: anthropometric indicators (relative height), vital statistics (to compute numbers of missing women), and outcomes of formal and informal family law disputes. I will then investigate how major economic developments and changes in family laws differentially affected women’s welfare across ethnic groups with different norms on women’s roles and rights.
Second, using intra-household economic models, I will provide new insights into domestic violence and gender bias in access to crucial resources in present-day Africa. I will develop a new household model that incorporates gender identity and endogenous outside options to explore the relationship between women’s empowerment and the use of violence. Using the notion of strategic delegation, I will propose a new rationale for the separation of budgets often observed in African households and generate predictions of how improvements in women’s outside options affect welfare. Finally, with first hand data, I will investigate intra-household differences in nutrition and work effort in times of food shortage from the points of view of efficiency and equity. I will use activity trackers as an innovative means of collecting high quality data on work effort and thus overcome data limitations restricting the existing literature
Max ERC Funding
1 499 313 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-08-01, End date: 2023-07-31
Project acronym COGNAP
Project To nap or not to nap? Why napping habits interfere with cognitive fitness in ageing
Researcher (PI) Christina Hildegard SCHMIDT
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITE DE LIEGE
Country Belgium
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH4, ERC-2017-STG
Summary All of us know of individuals who remain cognitively sharp at an advanced age. Identifying novel factors which associate with inter-individual variability in -and can be considered protective for- cognitive decline is a promising area in ageing research. Considering its strong implication in neuroprotective function, COGNAP predicts that variability in circadian rhythmicity explains a significant part of the age-related changes in human cognition. Circadian rhythms -one of the most fundamental processes of living organisms- are present throughout the nervous system and act on cognitive brain function. Circadian rhythms shape the temporal organization of sleep and wakefulness to achieve human diurnality, characterized by a consolidated bout of sleep during night-time and a continuous period of wakefulness during the day. Of prime importance is that the temporal organization of sleep and wakefulness evolves throughout the adult lifespan, leading to higher sleep-wake fragmentation with ageing. The increasing occurrence of daytime napping is the most visible manifestation of this fragmentation. Contrary to the common belief, napping stands as a health risk factor in seniors in epidemiological data. I posit that chronic napping in older people primarily reflects circadian disruption. Based on my preliminary findings, I predict that this disruption will lead to lower cognitive fitness. I further hypothesise that a re-stabilization of circadian sleep-wake organization through a nap prevention intervention will reduce age-related cognitive decline. Characterizing the link between cognitive ageing and the temporal distribution of sleep and wakefulness will not only bring ground-breaking advances at the scientific level, but is also timely in the ageing society. Cognitive decline, as well as inadequately timed sleep, represent dominant determinants of the health span of our fast ageing population and easy implementable intervention programs are urgently needed.
Summary
All of us know of individuals who remain cognitively sharp at an advanced age. Identifying novel factors which associate with inter-individual variability in -and can be considered protective for- cognitive decline is a promising area in ageing research. Considering its strong implication in neuroprotective function, COGNAP predicts that variability in circadian rhythmicity explains a significant part of the age-related changes in human cognition. Circadian rhythms -one of the most fundamental processes of living organisms- are present throughout the nervous system and act on cognitive brain function. Circadian rhythms shape the temporal organization of sleep and wakefulness to achieve human diurnality, characterized by a consolidated bout of sleep during night-time and a continuous period of wakefulness during the day. Of prime importance is that the temporal organization of sleep and wakefulness evolves throughout the adult lifespan, leading to higher sleep-wake fragmentation with ageing. The increasing occurrence of daytime napping is the most visible manifestation of this fragmentation. Contrary to the common belief, napping stands as a health risk factor in seniors in epidemiological data. I posit that chronic napping in older people primarily reflects circadian disruption. Based on my preliminary findings, I predict that this disruption will lead to lower cognitive fitness. I further hypothesise that a re-stabilization of circadian sleep-wake organization through a nap prevention intervention will reduce age-related cognitive decline. Characterizing the link between cognitive ageing and the temporal distribution of sleep and wakefulness will not only bring ground-breaking advances at the scientific level, but is also timely in the ageing society. Cognitive decline, as well as inadequately timed sleep, represent dominant determinants of the health span of our fast ageing population and easy implementable intervention programs are urgently needed.
Max ERC Funding
1 499 125 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-01-01, End date: 2023-06-30
Project acronym COMICS
Project Children in Comics: An Intercultural History from 1865 to Today
Researcher (PI) Maaheen AHMED
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITEIT GENT
Country Belgium
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH5, ERC-2017-STG
Summary Owing to their visual essence and status as a popular, modern medium, comics – newspaper strips, comics magazines and graphic novels – provide valuable insight into the transformation of collective consciousness. This project advances the hypothesis that children in comics are distinctive embodiments of the complex experience of modernity, channeling and tempering modern anxieties and incarnating the freedom denied to adults. In testing this hypothesis, the project constructs the first intercultural history of children in European comics, tracing the changing conceptualizations of child protagonists in popular comics for both children and adults from the mid-19th century to the present. In doing so, it takes key points in European history as well as the history of comics into account.
Assembling a team of six multilingual researchers, the project uses an interdisciplinary methodology combining comics studies and childhood studies while also incorporating specific insights from cultural studies (history of family life, history of public life, history of the body, affect theory and scholarship on the carnivalesque). This enables the project to analyze the transposition of modern anxieties, conceptualizations of childishness, child-adult power relations, notions of liberty, visualizations of the body, family life, school and public life as well as the presence of affects such as nostalgia and happiness in comics starring children.
The project thus opens up a new field of research lying at the intersection of comics studies and childhood studies and illustrates its potential. In studying popular but often overlooked comics, the project provides crucial historical and analytical material that will shape future comics criticism and the fields associated with childhood studies. Furthermore, the project’s outreach activities will increase collective knowledge about comic strips, which form an important, increasingly visible part of cultural heritage.
Summary
Owing to their visual essence and status as a popular, modern medium, comics – newspaper strips, comics magazines and graphic novels – provide valuable insight into the transformation of collective consciousness. This project advances the hypothesis that children in comics are distinctive embodiments of the complex experience of modernity, channeling and tempering modern anxieties and incarnating the freedom denied to adults. In testing this hypothesis, the project constructs the first intercultural history of children in European comics, tracing the changing conceptualizations of child protagonists in popular comics for both children and adults from the mid-19th century to the present. In doing so, it takes key points in European history as well as the history of comics into account.
Assembling a team of six multilingual researchers, the project uses an interdisciplinary methodology combining comics studies and childhood studies while also incorporating specific insights from cultural studies (history of family life, history of public life, history of the body, affect theory and scholarship on the carnivalesque). This enables the project to analyze the transposition of modern anxieties, conceptualizations of childishness, child-adult power relations, notions of liberty, visualizations of the body, family life, school and public life as well as the presence of affects such as nostalgia and happiness in comics starring children.
The project thus opens up a new field of research lying at the intersection of comics studies and childhood studies and illustrates its potential. In studying popular but often overlooked comics, the project provides crucial historical and analytical material that will shape future comics criticism and the fields associated with childhood studies. Furthermore, the project’s outreach activities will increase collective knowledge about comic strips, which form an important, increasingly visible part of cultural heritage.
Max ERC Funding
1 452 500 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-10-01, End date: 2023-09-30
Project acronym ELONGAN
Project Gene editing and in vitro approaches to understand conceptus elongation in ungulates
Researcher (PI) Pablo BERMEJO-aLVAREZ
Host Institution (HI) INSTITUTO NACIONAL DE INVESTIGACION Y TECNOLOGIA AGRARIA Y ALIMENTARIA OA MP
Country Spain
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), LS9, ERC-2017-STG
Summary In contrast to human or rodent embryos, ungulate embryos do not implant into the uterus right after blastocyst hatching. Before implantation, the hatched ungulate blastocyst must undergo dramatic morphological changes characterized by cell differentiation, proliferation and migration processes leading to the development of extra-embryonic membranes, the appearance of a flat embryonic disc and gastrulation. This prolonged preimplantation development is termed conceptus elongation and deficiencies on this process constitute the most frequent cause of reproductive failures in ungulates, including the 4 most relevant mammalian livestock species in Europe. The purpose of this project is to elucidate the factors involved in conceptus elongation by gene editing and in vitro culture approaches. A first objective will be to identify key genes involved in differentiation processes by RNA-seq analysis of different embryo derivatives from bovine conceptuses at different developmental stages. Subsequently, the function of some of the genes identified as well as others known to play a crucial role in mouse development or putatively involved in embryo-maternal interactions will be assessed. For this aim, bovine embryos in which a candidate gene has been ablated (KO) will be generated by CRISPR and transferred to recipient females to assess in vivo the function of such particular gene on conceptus development. A second set of experiments pursue the development of an in vitro system for conceptus elongation that would bypass the requirement for in vivo experiments. For this aim we will perform metabolomics and proteomics analyses of bovine uterine fluid at different stages and will use these data to rationally develop a culture system able to sustain conceptus development. The knowledge generated by this project will serve to develop strategies to enhance farming profitability by reducing embryonic loss and to understand Developmental Biology questions unanswered by the mouse model.
Summary
In contrast to human or rodent embryos, ungulate embryos do not implant into the uterus right after blastocyst hatching. Before implantation, the hatched ungulate blastocyst must undergo dramatic morphological changes characterized by cell differentiation, proliferation and migration processes leading to the development of extra-embryonic membranes, the appearance of a flat embryonic disc and gastrulation. This prolonged preimplantation development is termed conceptus elongation and deficiencies on this process constitute the most frequent cause of reproductive failures in ungulates, including the 4 most relevant mammalian livestock species in Europe. The purpose of this project is to elucidate the factors involved in conceptus elongation by gene editing and in vitro culture approaches. A first objective will be to identify key genes involved in differentiation processes by RNA-seq analysis of different embryo derivatives from bovine conceptuses at different developmental stages. Subsequently, the function of some of the genes identified as well as others known to play a crucial role in mouse development or putatively involved in embryo-maternal interactions will be assessed. For this aim, bovine embryos in which a candidate gene has been ablated (KO) will be generated by CRISPR and transferred to recipient females to assess in vivo the function of such particular gene on conceptus development. A second set of experiments pursue the development of an in vitro system for conceptus elongation that would bypass the requirement for in vivo experiments. For this aim we will perform metabolomics and proteomics analyses of bovine uterine fluid at different stages and will use these data to rationally develop a culture system able to sustain conceptus development. The knowledge generated by this project will serve to develop strategies to enhance farming profitability by reducing embryonic loss and to understand Developmental Biology questions unanswered by the mouse model.
Max ERC Funding
1 480 880 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-10-01, End date: 2022-09-30
Project acronym EVWRIT
Project Everyday Writing in Graeco-Roman and Late Antique Egypt (I - VIII AD). A Socio-Semiotic Study of Communicative Variation
Researcher (PI) Klaas BENTEIN
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITEIT GENT
Country Belgium
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH5, ERC-2017-STG
Summary This five-year project aims to generate a paradigm shift in the understanding of Graeco-Roman and Late Antique communication. Non-literary, ‘documentary’ texts from Ancient Egypt such as letters, petitions and contracts have provided and continue to provide a key witness for our knowledge of the administration, education, economy, etc. of Ancient Egypt. This project argues that since documentary texts represent originals, their external characteristics should also be brought into the interpretation: elements such as handwriting, linguistic register or writing material transmit indirect social messages concerning hierarchy, status, and power relations, and can therefore be considered ‘semiotic resources’. The project’s driving hypothesis is that communicative variation – variation that is functionally insignificant but socially significant (e.g. there are ~ there’s ~ it’s a lot of people) – enables the expression of social meaning. The main aim of this project is to analyse the nature of this communicative variation. To this end, a multidisciplinary team of six researchers (one PI, one post-doc, and four PhD’s) will apply recent insights form socio-semiotic and socio-linguistic theory to a corpus of Graeco-Roman and Late Antique documentary texts (I – VIII AD) by means of a three-level approach: (i) an open-access database of annotated documentary texts will be created; (ii) the ‘semiotic potential’ of the different semiotic resources that play a role in documentary writing will be analysed; (iii) the interrelationships between the different semiotic resources will be studied. The project will have a significant scientific impact: (i) it will be the first to offer a holistic perspective towards the ‘meaning’ of documentary texts; (ii) the digital tool will open up new ways to investigate Ancient texts; (iii) it will make an important contribution to current socio-semiotic and socio-linguistic research; (iv) it will provide new insights about humans as social beings.
Summary
This five-year project aims to generate a paradigm shift in the understanding of Graeco-Roman and Late Antique communication. Non-literary, ‘documentary’ texts from Ancient Egypt such as letters, petitions and contracts have provided and continue to provide a key witness for our knowledge of the administration, education, economy, etc. of Ancient Egypt. This project argues that since documentary texts represent originals, their external characteristics should also be brought into the interpretation: elements such as handwriting, linguistic register or writing material transmit indirect social messages concerning hierarchy, status, and power relations, and can therefore be considered ‘semiotic resources’. The project’s driving hypothesis is that communicative variation – variation that is functionally insignificant but socially significant (e.g. there are ~ there’s ~ it’s a lot of people) – enables the expression of social meaning. The main aim of this project is to analyse the nature of this communicative variation. To this end, a multidisciplinary team of six researchers (one PI, one post-doc, and four PhD’s) will apply recent insights form socio-semiotic and socio-linguistic theory to a corpus of Graeco-Roman and Late Antique documentary texts (I – VIII AD) by means of a three-level approach: (i) an open-access database of annotated documentary texts will be created; (ii) the ‘semiotic potential’ of the different semiotic resources that play a role in documentary writing will be analysed; (iii) the interrelationships between the different semiotic resources will be studied. The project will have a significant scientific impact: (i) it will be the first to offer a holistic perspective towards the ‘meaning’ of documentary texts; (ii) the digital tool will open up new ways to investigate Ancient texts; (iii) it will make an important contribution to current socio-semiotic and socio-linguistic research; (iv) it will provide new insights about humans as social beings.
Max ERC Funding
1 476 250 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-06-01, End date: 2023-05-31
Project acronym FORMICA
Project Microclimatic buffering of plant responses to macroclimate warming in temperate forests
Researcher (PI) Pieter DE FRENNE
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITEIT GENT
Country Belgium
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), LS9, ERC-2017-STG
Summary Recent global warming is acting across ecosystems and threatening biodiversity. Yet, due to slow responses, many biological communities are lagging behind warming of the macroclimate (the climate of a large geographic region). The buffering of microclimates near the ground measured in localized areas, arising from terrain features such as vegetation and topography, can explain why many species are lagging behind macroclimate warming. However, almost all studies ignore the effects of microclimatic buffering and key uncertainties still exist about this mechanism. Microclimates are particularly evident in forests, where understorey habitats are buffered by overstorey trees. In temperate forests, the understorey contains the vast majority of plant diversity and plays an essential role in driving ecosystem processes.
The overall goal of FORMICA (FORest MICroclimate Assessment) is to quantify and understand the role of microclimatic buffering in modulating forest understorey plant responses to macroclimate warming. We will perform the best assessment to date of the effects of microclimates on plants by applying microtemperature loggers, experimental heating, fluorescent tubes and a large-scale transplant experiment in temperate forests across Europe. For the first time, plant data from the individual to ecosystem level will be related to microclimate along wide temperature gradients and forest management regimes. The empirical results will then be integrated in cutting-edge demographic distribution models to forecast plant diversity in temperate forests as macroclimate warms.
FORMICA will provide the first integrative study on microclimatic buffering of macroclimate warming in forests. Interdisciplinary concepts and methods will be applied, including from climatology, forestry and ecology. FORMICA will reshape our current understanding of the impacts of climate change on forests and help land managers and policy makers to develop urgently needed adaptation strategies.
Summary
Recent global warming is acting across ecosystems and threatening biodiversity. Yet, due to slow responses, many biological communities are lagging behind warming of the macroclimate (the climate of a large geographic region). The buffering of microclimates near the ground measured in localized areas, arising from terrain features such as vegetation and topography, can explain why many species are lagging behind macroclimate warming. However, almost all studies ignore the effects of microclimatic buffering and key uncertainties still exist about this mechanism. Microclimates are particularly evident in forests, where understorey habitats are buffered by overstorey trees. In temperate forests, the understorey contains the vast majority of plant diversity and plays an essential role in driving ecosystem processes.
The overall goal of FORMICA (FORest MICroclimate Assessment) is to quantify and understand the role of microclimatic buffering in modulating forest understorey plant responses to macroclimate warming. We will perform the best assessment to date of the effects of microclimates on plants by applying microtemperature loggers, experimental heating, fluorescent tubes and a large-scale transplant experiment in temperate forests across Europe. For the first time, plant data from the individual to ecosystem level will be related to microclimate along wide temperature gradients and forest management regimes. The empirical results will then be integrated in cutting-edge demographic distribution models to forecast plant diversity in temperate forests as macroclimate warms.
FORMICA will provide the first integrative study on microclimatic buffering of macroclimate warming in forests. Interdisciplinary concepts and methods will be applied, including from climatology, forestry and ecology. FORMICA will reshape our current understanding of the impacts of climate change on forests and help land managers and policy makers to develop urgently needed adaptation strategies.
Max ERC Funding
1 498 469 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-02-01, End date: 2023-01-31
Project acronym HamInstab
Project Instabilities and homoclinic phenomena in Hamiltonian systems
Researcher (PI) Marcel GUARDIA
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITAT POLITECNICA DE CATALUNYA
Country Spain
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), PE1, ERC-2017-STG
Summary A fundamental problem in the study of dynamical systems is to ascertain whether the effect of a perturbation on an integrable Hamiltonian system accumulates over time and leads to a large effect (instability) or it averages out (stability). Instabilities in nearly integrable systems, usually called Arnold diffusion, take place along resonances and by means of a
framework of partially hyperbolic invariant objects and their homoclinic and heteroclinic connections.
The goal of this project is to develop new techniques, relying on the role of invariant manifolds in the global dynamics, to prove the existence of physically relevant instabilities and homoclinic phenomena in several problems in celestial mechanics and Hamiltonian Partial Differential Equations.
The N body problem models the interaction of N puntual masses under gravitational force. Astronomers have deeply analyzed the role of resonances in this model. Nevertheless, mathematical results showing instabilities along them are rather scarce. I plan to develop a new theory to analyze the transversal intersection between invariant manifolds along mean motion and secular resonances to prove the existence of Arnold diffusion. I will also apply this theory to construct oscillatory motions.
Several Partial Differential Equations such as the nonlinear Schrödinger, the Klein-Gordon and the wave equations can be seen as infinite dimensional Hamiltonian systems. Using dynamical systems techniques and understanding the role of invariant manifolds in these Hamiltonian PDEs, I will study two type of solutions: transfer of energy solutions, namely solutions that push energy to arbitrarily high modes as time evolves by drifting along resonances; and breathers, spatially
localized and periodic in time solutions, which in a proper setting can be seen as homoclinic orbits to a stationary solution.
Summary
A fundamental problem in the study of dynamical systems is to ascertain whether the effect of a perturbation on an integrable Hamiltonian system accumulates over time and leads to a large effect (instability) or it averages out (stability). Instabilities in nearly integrable systems, usually called Arnold diffusion, take place along resonances and by means of a
framework of partially hyperbolic invariant objects and their homoclinic and heteroclinic connections.
The goal of this project is to develop new techniques, relying on the role of invariant manifolds in the global dynamics, to prove the existence of physically relevant instabilities and homoclinic phenomena in several problems in celestial mechanics and Hamiltonian Partial Differential Equations.
The N body problem models the interaction of N puntual masses under gravitational force. Astronomers have deeply analyzed the role of resonances in this model. Nevertheless, mathematical results showing instabilities along them are rather scarce. I plan to develop a new theory to analyze the transversal intersection between invariant manifolds along mean motion and secular resonances to prove the existence of Arnold diffusion. I will also apply this theory to construct oscillatory motions.
Several Partial Differential Equations such as the nonlinear Schrödinger, the Klein-Gordon and the wave equations can be seen as infinite dimensional Hamiltonian systems. Using dynamical systems techniques and understanding the role of invariant manifolds in these Hamiltonian PDEs, I will study two type of solutions: transfer of energy solutions, namely solutions that push energy to arbitrarily high modes as time evolves by drifting along resonances; and breathers, spatially
localized and periodic in time solutions, which in a proper setting can be seen as homoclinic orbits to a stationary solution.
Max ERC Funding
1 100 348 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-01-01, End date: 2023-12-31
Project acronym HYPER-INSIGHT
Project Hypermutated tumors: insight into genome maintenance and cancer vulnerabilities provided by an extreme burden of somatic mutations
Researcher (PI) Fran Supek
Host Institution (HI) FUNDACIO INSTITUT DE RECERCA BIOMEDICA (IRB BARCELONA)
Country Spain
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), LS2, ERC-2017-STG
Summary Mutations are the fuel of any evolutionary process, and this also applies to carcinogenesis. The advent of affordable DNA sequencing has enabled mutagenic processes in the human soma to be quantified genome-wide, revealing a striking occurrence of hypermutated tumors. They exhibit an extreme load of somatic changes, often harbouring hundreds of single-nucleotide variants and/or indels per megabase. The HYPER-INSIGHT project is organized into three objectives, which aim to take advantage of the unique opportunity provided by genome sequences of hypermutated and ultramutated tumors. In particular, this work planned in this project aims to further our knowledge on (i) the regional organization of the DNA replication and repair program in human cells, and the determinants thereof, (ii) the extent of selection which acts on somatic variants in various pathways or complexes and (iii) opportunities for selectively targeting DNA repair deficiencies that manifest as hypermutation. Methodologically, our work will employ a three-pronged approach. First, we will perform a multitude of rigorous statistical analyses that draw on the rich and still-expanding resources provided by cancer genomics consortia. Second, we will perform exome and genome sequencing, focusing on ultramutated tumors caused by specific defects in the DNA maintenance machinery. Third, the project involves conditional essentiality screens on cancer cell lines with hypermutant backgrounds. Their goal is to discover synthetic lethality relationships, useful for targeting hypermutating cells, while sparing healthy ones. In summary, one of the promises of cancer genome sequencing projects was to elucidate the mechanisms underlying mutational processes in the human soma, advancing our understanding of this important facet of cancer biology. We will work towards realizing this promise, thereby strengthening the EU’s position in the global scientific endeavour.
Summary
Mutations are the fuel of any evolutionary process, and this also applies to carcinogenesis. The advent of affordable DNA sequencing has enabled mutagenic processes in the human soma to be quantified genome-wide, revealing a striking occurrence of hypermutated tumors. They exhibit an extreme load of somatic changes, often harbouring hundreds of single-nucleotide variants and/or indels per megabase. The HYPER-INSIGHT project is organized into three objectives, which aim to take advantage of the unique opportunity provided by genome sequences of hypermutated and ultramutated tumors. In particular, this work planned in this project aims to further our knowledge on (i) the regional organization of the DNA replication and repair program in human cells, and the determinants thereof, (ii) the extent of selection which acts on somatic variants in various pathways or complexes and (iii) opportunities for selectively targeting DNA repair deficiencies that manifest as hypermutation. Methodologically, our work will employ a three-pronged approach. First, we will perform a multitude of rigorous statistical analyses that draw on the rich and still-expanding resources provided by cancer genomics consortia. Second, we will perform exome and genome sequencing, focusing on ultramutated tumors caused by specific defects in the DNA maintenance machinery. Third, the project involves conditional essentiality screens on cancer cell lines with hypermutant backgrounds. Their goal is to discover synthetic lethality relationships, useful for targeting hypermutating cells, while sparing healthy ones. In summary, one of the promises of cancer genome sequencing projects was to elucidate the mechanisms underlying mutational processes in the human soma, advancing our understanding of this important facet of cancer biology. We will work towards realizing this promise, thereby strengthening the EU’s position in the global scientific endeavour.
Max ERC Funding
1 499 813 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-02-01, End date: 2023-01-31
Project acronym MIRAGE
Project Independence and quality of mass Media in the InteRnet AGE
Researcher (PI) Ruben Durante
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSIDAD POMPEU FABRA
Country Spain
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH1, ERC-2017-STG
Summary The Internet was expected to make citizens considerably more informed and better able to hold politicians and powerful interests accountable. Many predicted it would also effectively complement traditional media and improve news reporting. These expectations have not been met. There is no evidence that citizens have become more informed; they have, however, become more ideologically polarized, possibly due to online media overexposing users to like-minded content. At the same time, traditional media are struggling: competition from online platforms has slashed advertising revenues forcing newspapers to close or downsize. These changes risk undermining the quality of reporting and making media more vulnerable to capture by special interests.
My project examines how the Internet has transformed the way news is produced and disseminated, both directly and through its influence on traditional media, and its ultimate effect on media independence and content quality. To this end, I tackle four distinct but intertwined questions. First, I examine to what extent Google search results are tailored to users’ political views, and whether personalized results increase ideological polarization. Second, I study how lower advertising revenues affect newspapers’ organization and content quality by exploiting the staggered introduction of advertising platform Craigslist across the US. Third, I examine how media dependence on advertisers influences news bias by testing the relationship between advertising spending by car manufacturers and coverage of car safety recalls in US newspapers. Finally, I study how the dependence of media on banks affects coverage of financial issues; focusing on Europe’s sovereign debt crisis, I test whether newspapers linked to banks with higher exposure to risky debt endorsed different crisis-management measures.
My results will shed light on the deep transformations the media industry is undergoing and their implications for the quality of democracy.
Summary
The Internet was expected to make citizens considerably more informed and better able to hold politicians and powerful interests accountable. Many predicted it would also effectively complement traditional media and improve news reporting. These expectations have not been met. There is no evidence that citizens have become more informed; they have, however, become more ideologically polarized, possibly due to online media overexposing users to like-minded content. At the same time, traditional media are struggling: competition from online platforms has slashed advertising revenues forcing newspapers to close or downsize. These changes risk undermining the quality of reporting and making media more vulnerable to capture by special interests.
My project examines how the Internet has transformed the way news is produced and disseminated, both directly and through its influence on traditional media, and its ultimate effect on media independence and content quality. To this end, I tackle four distinct but intertwined questions. First, I examine to what extent Google search results are tailored to users’ political views, and whether personalized results increase ideological polarization. Second, I study how lower advertising revenues affect newspapers’ organization and content quality by exploiting the staggered introduction of advertising platform Craigslist across the US. Third, I examine how media dependence on advertisers influences news bias by testing the relationship between advertising spending by car manufacturers and coverage of car safety recalls in US newspapers. Finally, I study how the dependence of media on banks affects coverage of financial issues; focusing on Europe’s sovereign debt crisis, I test whether newspapers linked to banks with higher exposure to risky debt endorsed different crisis-management measures.
My results will shed light on the deep transformations the media industry is undergoing and their implications for the quality of democracy.
Max ERC Funding
1 485 500 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-11-01, End date: 2023-10-31
Project acronym PROTEUS
Project Paradoxes and Metaphors of Time in Early Universe(s)
Researcher (PI) Silvia DE BIANCHI
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSIDAD AUTONOMA DE BARCELONA
Country Spain
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH5, ERC-2017-STG
Summary PROTEUS studies main strategies devised by Western philosophy in representing time in cosmology. It aims at modifying current metaphysics and its relationship with cosmology in the light of recent scientific debates in quantum gravity and quantum cosmology, thereby boosting a new research field in history and philosophy of cosmology. The project is based on two hypotheses: 1) the history of philosophy reveals a guideline that can be traced back to Plato and that characterizes physical and metaphysical approaches to the question of the beginning of the universe in terms of a tension between fundamentality and non-fundamentality of time; 2) there is a conceptual problematic assumption in Western culture and it consists in shaping the problem of the origin of the world as a problem of thinking about the very same conditions of possibility of the origin of a process that is not in time. The project spells out the conceptual roots of current representations of time in quantum gravity and quantum cosmology and highlights the conceptual break that they provide with respect to philosophical concepts of time portrayed in previous systems. PROTEUS explores in detail the notions of time and the paradoxes emerging in the philosophy and cosmology of Plato and Kant and identifies the fundamental characters of emergent time in current quantum gravity theories. In identifying these fundamental features, PROTEUS produces conceptual innovation in metaphysics in such a way that philosophical investigation is complementary to the development of current theories. PROTEUS elaborates alternative argument(s) to anthropic principle, as well as new categories accounting for the notion of ‘contingent necessity’ of the world. The research team includes members from different backgrounds (philosophy, mathematics and physics) and will promote the application of a new methodology emphasizing the relevance of the history of philosophy and the actual interaction between philosophers and scientists.
Summary
PROTEUS studies main strategies devised by Western philosophy in representing time in cosmology. It aims at modifying current metaphysics and its relationship with cosmology in the light of recent scientific debates in quantum gravity and quantum cosmology, thereby boosting a new research field in history and philosophy of cosmology. The project is based on two hypotheses: 1) the history of philosophy reveals a guideline that can be traced back to Plato and that characterizes physical and metaphysical approaches to the question of the beginning of the universe in terms of a tension between fundamentality and non-fundamentality of time; 2) there is a conceptual problematic assumption in Western culture and it consists in shaping the problem of the origin of the world as a problem of thinking about the very same conditions of possibility of the origin of a process that is not in time. The project spells out the conceptual roots of current representations of time in quantum gravity and quantum cosmology and highlights the conceptual break that they provide with respect to philosophical concepts of time portrayed in previous systems. PROTEUS explores in detail the notions of time and the paradoxes emerging in the philosophy and cosmology of Plato and Kant and identifies the fundamental characters of emergent time in current quantum gravity theories. In identifying these fundamental features, PROTEUS produces conceptual innovation in metaphysics in such a way that philosophical investigation is complementary to the development of current theories. PROTEUS elaborates alternative argument(s) to anthropic principle, as well as new categories accounting for the notion of ‘contingent necessity’ of the world. The research team includes members from different backgrounds (philosophy, mathematics and physics) and will promote the application of a new methodology emphasizing the relevance of the history of philosophy and the actual interaction between philosophers and scientists.
Max ERC Funding
1 418 869 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-09-01, End date: 2023-08-31
Project acronym ReConAg
Project Rethinking Conscious Agency
Researcher (PI) Joshua Lawson SHEPHERD
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITAT DE BARCELONA
Country Spain
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH4, ERC-2017-STG
Summary This project will investigate the nature, structure and significance of conscious agency along three related fronts.
First, although philosophers have emphasized the importance of various aspects of consciousness for human agency, work on conscious agency within philosophy remains unsystematic. Cross-talk regarding the phenomena at issue hampers progress, as does a lack of significant attention to the richness of the phenomenology that accompanies human agency. In response, we will develop a new account of the nature and mechanistic underpinnings of agentive phenomenology.
Second, although psychology’s recent progress in explaining agentive capacities – e.g., metacognition, cognitive control, attention, perception, decision-making, and motor acuity – is impressive, insights regarding the importance of consciousness for these capacities need to be made explicit, and leveraged to construct a next generation model of action control. In response, we will map the phenomenology of agency onto the structure and function of action control capacities, with special focus on three areas: the role of explicit knowledge and its signatures within consciousness, the function of phenomenal states for cognitive control resource allocation, and the relationships between conscious intentions and perceptual feedback.
Third, we will deploy the tools of experimental philosophy – that is, the use of psychological methods to study philosophical questions – in two novel areas. First, we will complement and advance this project’s philosophical work by experimentally investigating agentive phenomenology. Second, we will explore the practical and moral significance of conscious agency, by determining what aspects of conscious agency drive commonsense moral thinking about responsibility for action.
Summary
This project will investigate the nature, structure and significance of conscious agency along three related fronts.
First, although philosophers have emphasized the importance of various aspects of consciousness for human agency, work on conscious agency within philosophy remains unsystematic. Cross-talk regarding the phenomena at issue hampers progress, as does a lack of significant attention to the richness of the phenomenology that accompanies human agency. In response, we will develop a new account of the nature and mechanistic underpinnings of agentive phenomenology.
Second, although psychology’s recent progress in explaining agentive capacities – e.g., metacognition, cognitive control, attention, perception, decision-making, and motor acuity – is impressive, insights regarding the importance of consciousness for these capacities need to be made explicit, and leveraged to construct a next generation model of action control. In response, we will map the phenomenology of agency onto the structure and function of action control capacities, with special focus on three areas: the role of explicit knowledge and its signatures within consciousness, the function of phenomenal states for cognitive control resource allocation, and the relationships between conscious intentions and perceptual feedback.
Third, we will deploy the tools of experimental philosophy – that is, the use of psychological methods to study philosophical questions – in two novel areas. First, we will complement and advance this project’s philosophical work by experimentally investigating agentive phenomenology. Second, we will explore the practical and moral significance of conscious agency, by determining what aspects of conscious agency drive commonsense moral thinking about responsibility for action.
Max ERC Funding
1 064 712 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-05-01, End date: 2023-04-30
Project acronym SENTIFLEX
Project Fluorescence-based photosynthesis estimates for vegetation productivity monitoring from space
Researcher (PI) Jochem VERRELST
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITAT DE VALENCIA
Country Spain
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), LS9, ERC-2017-STG
Summary Global food security will remain a worldwide concern for the next 50 years and beyond. Agricultural production undergoes an increasing pressure by global anthropogenic changes, including rising population, increased protein demands and climatic extremes. Because of the immediate and dynamic nature of these changes, productivity monitoring measures are urgently needed to ensure both the stability and continued increase of the global food supply. Europe has expressed ambitions to keep its fingers on the pulse of its agricultural lands. In response to that, this proposal - named SENTIFLEX - is dedicated to developing a European vegetation productivity monitoring facility based on the synergy of Sentinel-3 (S3) with FLEX satellite fluorescence data. ESA's 8th Earth Explorer FLEX is the first mission specifically designed to globally measure Sun-Induced chlorophyll Fluorescence (SIF) emission from terrestrial vegetation. These two European Earth observation missions offer immense possibilities to increase our knowledge of the basic functioning of the Earth’s vegetation, i.e., the photosynthetic activity of plants resulting in carbon fixation. Two complementary approaches are envisioned to realize quantification of photosynthesis through satellite SIF and S3. First, the work seeks to advance the science in establishing and consolidating relationships between canopy-leaving SIF and unbiased estimates of photosynthesis of the plants, thereby disentangling the role of dynamic vegetative and atmospheric variables. Second, consolidated relationships between SIF and photosynthesis will be used to build a FLEX-S3 data processing assimilation scheme through process-based vegetation models that will deliver spatiotemporally highly resolved information on Europe’s vegetation productivity. To streamline all these datasets into a prototype vegetation productivity monitoring facility, new data processing concepts will be introduced such as the emulation of radiative transfer models.
Summary
Global food security will remain a worldwide concern for the next 50 years and beyond. Agricultural production undergoes an increasing pressure by global anthropogenic changes, including rising population, increased protein demands and climatic extremes. Because of the immediate and dynamic nature of these changes, productivity monitoring measures are urgently needed to ensure both the stability and continued increase of the global food supply. Europe has expressed ambitions to keep its fingers on the pulse of its agricultural lands. In response to that, this proposal - named SENTIFLEX - is dedicated to developing a European vegetation productivity monitoring facility based on the synergy of Sentinel-3 (S3) with FLEX satellite fluorescence data. ESA's 8th Earth Explorer FLEX is the first mission specifically designed to globally measure Sun-Induced chlorophyll Fluorescence (SIF) emission from terrestrial vegetation. These two European Earth observation missions offer immense possibilities to increase our knowledge of the basic functioning of the Earth’s vegetation, i.e., the photosynthetic activity of plants resulting in carbon fixation. Two complementary approaches are envisioned to realize quantification of photosynthesis through satellite SIF and S3. First, the work seeks to advance the science in establishing and consolidating relationships between canopy-leaving SIF and unbiased estimates of photosynthesis of the plants, thereby disentangling the role of dynamic vegetative and atmospheric variables. Second, consolidated relationships between SIF and photosynthesis will be used to build a FLEX-S3 data processing assimilation scheme through process-based vegetation models that will deliver spatiotemporally highly resolved information on Europe’s vegetation productivity. To streamline all these datasets into a prototype vegetation productivity monitoring facility, new data processing concepts will be introduced such as the emulation of radiative transfer models.
Max ERC Funding
1 499 587 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-01-01, End date: 2022-12-31
Project acronym SUEE
Project Strategic Uncertainty in Economic Environments
Researcher (PI) Antonio Penta
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSIDAD POMPEU FABRA
Country Spain
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH1, ERC-2017-STG
Summary This proposal concerns two sets of projects that tackle theoretical challenges raised by the data broker and online advertisement industry.
1-Strategic Uncertainty (SU) in Economic Environments: By assuming that individuals have correct beliefs about others' behavior, the equilibrium approach in economics assumes away SU. But SU is central to many settings. Testament to this is the existence of a data broker industry, in which data on agents' behavior are traded: this information would have no value without SU. Within game theory, non-equilibrium concepts such as rationalizability and models of level-k reasoning have been developed to study SU. But these models have had a limited impact on broader economics. This is partly due to the weakness and limited tractability of these concepts. Part 1 tackles SU in order to favor a better integration within economics. From a behavioral perspective, I propose axiomatic foundations that justify modeling individuals' reasoning as stemming from a cost-benefit analysis, and investigate (theoretically and experimentally) how these ideas shed light on the occurrence of equilibrium coordination under SU, i.e. as the result of purely subjective reasoning. From a classical perspective, I develop uniqueness and monotone comparative statics results for non-equilibrium concepts, to favor a better integration of SU in standard economics. Applications include problems of information disclosure of strategic datasets and identification in models of social interactions.
2-Online Auctions with Digital Marketing Agencies (DMA): I study the role of DMA in the auctions used to sell advertisement space on the web. I analyze how collusive bidding can emerge from bid delegation to a common DMA and how this undermines both revenues and efficiency of the auctions used by key players in the industry such as Facebook, Google and Microsoft-Yahoo!. Implications and extensions include business, policy and economics methodology.
Summary
This proposal concerns two sets of projects that tackle theoretical challenges raised by the data broker and online advertisement industry.
1-Strategic Uncertainty (SU) in Economic Environments: By assuming that individuals have correct beliefs about others' behavior, the equilibrium approach in economics assumes away SU. But SU is central to many settings. Testament to this is the existence of a data broker industry, in which data on agents' behavior are traded: this information would have no value without SU. Within game theory, non-equilibrium concepts such as rationalizability and models of level-k reasoning have been developed to study SU. But these models have had a limited impact on broader economics. This is partly due to the weakness and limited tractability of these concepts. Part 1 tackles SU in order to favor a better integration within economics. From a behavioral perspective, I propose axiomatic foundations that justify modeling individuals' reasoning as stemming from a cost-benefit analysis, and investigate (theoretically and experimentally) how these ideas shed light on the occurrence of equilibrium coordination under SU, i.e. as the result of purely subjective reasoning. From a classical perspective, I develop uniqueness and monotone comparative statics results for non-equilibrium concepts, to favor a better integration of SU in standard economics. Applications include problems of information disclosure of strategic datasets and identification in models of social interactions.
2-Online Auctions with Digital Marketing Agencies (DMA): I study the role of DMA in the auctions used to sell advertisement space on the web. I analyze how collusive bidding can emerge from bid delegation to a common DMA and how this undermines both revenues and efficiency of the auctions used by key players in the industry such as Facebook, Google and Microsoft-Yahoo!. Implications and extensions include business, policy and economics methodology.
Max ERC Funding
1 480 325 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-02-01, End date: 2023-01-31
