Project acronym FOUNDCOG
Project Curiosity and the Development of the Hidden Foundations of Cognition
Researcher (PI) Rhodri CUSACK
Host Institution (HI) THE PROVOST, FELLOWS, FOUNDATION SCHOLARS & THE OTHER MEMBERS OF BOARD OF THE COLLEGE OF THE HOLY & UNDIVIDED TRINITY OF QUEEN ELIZABETH NEAR DUBLIN
Country Ireland
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH4, ERC-2017-ADG
Summary How do human infants develop complex cognition? We propose that artificial intelligence (AI) provides crucial insight into human curiosity-driven learning and the development of infant cognition. Deep learning—a technology that has revolutionised AI—involves the acquisition of informative internal representations through pre-training, as a critical precursory step to learning any specific task. We propose that, similarly, curiosity guides human infants to develop ‘hidden’ mature mental representations through pre-training well before the manifestation of behaviour. To test this proposal, for the first time we will use neuroimaging to measure the hidden changes in representations during infancy and compare these to predictions from deep learning in machines. Research Question 1 will ask how infants guide pre-training through directed curiosity, by testing quantitative models of curiosity adapted from developmental robotics. We will also test the hypothesis from pilot data that the fronto-parietal brain network guides curiosity from the start. Research Question 2 will further test the parallel with deep learning by characterising the developing infant’s mental representations within the visual system using the powerful neuroimaging technique of representational similarity analysis. Research Question 3 will investigate how individual differences in curiosity affect later cognitive performance, and test the prediction from deep learning that the effects of early experience during pre-training grow rather than shrink with subsequent experience. Finally, Research Question 4 will test the novel prediction from deep learning that, following perinatal brain injury, pre-training creates resilience provided that curiosity is intact. The investigations will answer the overarching question of how pre-training learning lays the foundations for cognition and pioneer the new field of Computational Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience.
Summary
How do human infants develop complex cognition? We propose that artificial intelligence (AI) provides crucial insight into human curiosity-driven learning and the development of infant cognition. Deep learning—a technology that has revolutionised AI—involves the acquisition of informative internal representations through pre-training, as a critical precursory step to learning any specific task. We propose that, similarly, curiosity guides human infants to develop ‘hidden’ mature mental representations through pre-training well before the manifestation of behaviour. To test this proposal, for the first time we will use neuroimaging to measure the hidden changes in representations during infancy and compare these to predictions from deep learning in machines. Research Question 1 will ask how infants guide pre-training through directed curiosity, by testing quantitative models of curiosity adapted from developmental robotics. We will also test the hypothesis from pilot data that the fronto-parietal brain network guides curiosity from the start. Research Question 2 will further test the parallel with deep learning by characterising the developing infant’s mental representations within the visual system using the powerful neuroimaging technique of representational similarity analysis. Research Question 3 will investigate how individual differences in curiosity affect later cognitive performance, and test the prediction from deep learning that the effects of early experience during pre-training grow rather than shrink with subsequent experience. Finally, Research Question 4 will test the novel prediction from deep learning that, following perinatal brain injury, pre-training creates resilience provided that curiosity is intact. The investigations will answer the overarching question of how pre-training learning lays the foundations for cognition and pioneer the new field of Computational Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience.
Max ERC Funding
2 500 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-01-01, End date: 2023-12-31
Project acronym MISFIRES
Project Misfires and Market Innovation: Toward a Collaborative Turn in Organising Markets
Researcher (PI) Susi Geiger
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN, NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND, DUBLIN
Country Ireland
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH3, ERC-2017-COG
Summary MISFIRES opens up new theoretical and empirical horizons for analysing and innovating ‘concerned markets’, where multiple actors’ interests, values and concerns clash. It asks how actors can engage with a market’s failures to challenge its organisation and make it more collaborative, more open to civic values and to social or political concerns. Concerned markets are contested by diverse actors with equally diverse perspectives and value measures. Evaluating such a market’s efficiency is as much of an illusion as redesigning its inner workings on a blackboard. We need new conceptual frameworks to understand how to innovate concerned markets from the inside to make them ‘better’ (as defined by concerned actors), and we urgently need empirical insights into how collaborative action in markets with such social and political stakes may translate into market change. MISFIRES relies on science and technology studies, pragmatic sociology and critical market studies to shift thinking around market organisation from failure and design to collaboration and experimentation. I devise an ethnographic and participatory inquiry to explore how a market’s failures can lead us to markets that are more attentive to and accommodating of the concerns they create. I choose three exemplary contested markets in healthcare (licensing of antiretroviral drugs, Hepatitis C pricing, and the sale of DNA information) and two emergent controversies to investigate the activities concerned actors undertake, and the instruments and devices they experiment with, to re-organise that market. MISFIRES will comprehensively map, engage in, and conceptualise this collaborative turn in organising markets. With this, MISFIRES will guide new academic and policy thinking by establishing how:
1) concerned actors voice and mobilise around the notion that a market has ‘failed’ them;
2) concerned actors seek to negotiate and address market failures;
3) this process may lead to ‘better’ markets.
Summary
MISFIRES opens up new theoretical and empirical horizons for analysing and innovating ‘concerned markets’, where multiple actors’ interests, values and concerns clash. It asks how actors can engage with a market’s failures to challenge its organisation and make it more collaborative, more open to civic values and to social or political concerns. Concerned markets are contested by diverse actors with equally diverse perspectives and value measures. Evaluating such a market’s efficiency is as much of an illusion as redesigning its inner workings on a blackboard. We need new conceptual frameworks to understand how to innovate concerned markets from the inside to make them ‘better’ (as defined by concerned actors), and we urgently need empirical insights into how collaborative action in markets with such social and political stakes may translate into market change. MISFIRES relies on science and technology studies, pragmatic sociology and critical market studies to shift thinking around market organisation from failure and design to collaboration and experimentation. I devise an ethnographic and participatory inquiry to explore how a market’s failures can lead us to markets that are more attentive to and accommodating of the concerns they create. I choose three exemplary contested markets in healthcare (licensing of antiretroviral drugs, Hepatitis C pricing, and the sale of DNA information) and two emergent controversies to investigate the activities concerned actors undertake, and the instruments and devices they experiment with, to re-organise that market. MISFIRES will comprehensively map, engage in, and conceptualise this collaborative turn in organising markets. With this, MISFIRES will guide new academic and policy thinking by establishing how:
1) concerned actors voice and mobilise around the notion that a market has ‘failed’ them;
2) concerned actors seek to negotiate and address market failures;
3) this process may lead to ‘better’ markets.
Max ERC Funding
1 923 780 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-08-01, End date: 2023-07-31
Project acronym NeoplAT
Project Neoplatonism and Abrahamic Traditions. A Comparative Analysis of the Middle East, Byzantium and the Latin West (9th-16th Centuries)
Researcher (PI) Dragos Gheorghe CALMA
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN, NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND, DUBLIN
Country Ireland
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH5, ERC-2017-COG
Summary NeoplAT offers a fresh and thoroughly documented account of the impact of Pagan Neoplatonism on the Abrahamic traditions. It focuses mainly, but not exclusively, on the Elements of Theology of Proclus (fifth century) which occupies a unique place in the history of thought. Together with its ninth-century Arabic adaptation, the Book of Causes, it has been translated, adapted, refuted and commented upon by Muslim, Jewish and Christian thinkers across centuries, up to the dawn of modernity. Despite a renewed interest in Proclus’ legacy in recent years, one still observes a tendency to repeat conventional hypotheses focused on a limited range of well-studied authors. This project radically challenges these conservative narratives both by analysing invaluable, previously ignored resources and by developing an innovative comparative approach that embraces a variety of research methods and disciplines. Specialists in Arabic, Greek and Latin history of ideas, philology, palaeography and lexicography develop an intense interdisciplinary research laboratory investigating the influence of Proclus on the mutual exchanges between the scriptural monotheisms from the ninth to the sixteenth centuries. Based on fundamental archival examinations in underused library collections, NeoplAT aims (1) to identify new Arabic and Latin manuscripts and to continue to explore a corpus of texts recently discovered by the PI, representing a largely unknown intellectual heritage; (2) to retrace the scholarly networks by which Neoplatonism was transmitted between the Middle East, Byzantium and the Latin West, with particular attention to the dynamics of exchange within each cultural milieu; (3) to analyse the impact of Proclus on the history of metaphysics and on the relations between philosophy and theology within the Abrahamic traditions. NeoplAT achieves these goals through a collaborative, adapted methodology; its specific outputs will provide research tools for the broader academic community.
Summary
NeoplAT offers a fresh and thoroughly documented account of the impact of Pagan Neoplatonism on the Abrahamic traditions. It focuses mainly, but not exclusively, on the Elements of Theology of Proclus (fifth century) which occupies a unique place in the history of thought. Together with its ninth-century Arabic adaptation, the Book of Causes, it has been translated, adapted, refuted and commented upon by Muslim, Jewish and Christian thinkers across centuries, up to the dawn of modernity. Despite a renewed interest in Proclus’ legacy in recent years, one still observes a tendency to repeat conventional hypotheses focused on a limited range of well-studied authors. This project radically challenges these conservative narratives both by analysing invaluable, previously ignored resources and by developing an innovative comparative approach that embraces a variety of research methods and disciplines. Specialists in Arabic, Greek and Latin history of ideas, philology, palaeography and lexicography develop an intense interdisciplinary research laboratory investigating the influence of Proclus on the mutual exchanges between the scriptural monotheisms from the ninth to the sixteenth centuries. Based on fundamental archival examinations in underused library collections, NeoplAT aims (1) to identify new Arabic and Latin manuscripts and to continue to explore a corpus of texts recently discovered by the PI, representing a largely unknown intellectual heritage; (2) to retrace the scholarly networks by which Neoplatonism was transmitted between the Middle East, Byzantium and the Latin West, with particular attention to the dynamics of exchange within each cultural milieu; (3) to analyse the impact of Proclus on the history of metaphysics and on the relations between philosophy and theology within the Abrahamic traditions. NeoplAT achieves these goals through a collaborative, adapted methodology; its specific outputs will provide research tools for the broader academic community.
Max ERC Funding
1 992 590 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-05-01, End date: 2023-04-30
Project acronym ODYSSEY
Project Open dynamics of interacting and disordered quantum systems
Researcher (PI) John GOOLD
Host Institution (HI) THE PROVOST, FELLOWS, FOUNDATION SCHOLARS & THE OTHER MEMBERS OF BOARD, OF THE COLLEGE OF THE HOLY & UNDIVIDED TRINITY OF QUEEN ELIZABETH NEAR DUBLIN
Country Ireland
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), PE3, ERC-2017-STG
Summary This research proposal focuses on the open quantum system dynamics of disordered and interacting many- body systems coupled to external baths. The dynamics of systems which contain both disorder and interactions are currently under intense theoretical investigation in condensed matter physics due to the discovery of a new phase of matter known as many-body localization. With the experimental realization of such systems in mind, this proposal addresses an essential issue which is to understand how coupling to external degrees of freedom influences dynamics. These systems are intrinsically complex and lie beyond the unitary closed system paradigm, so the research proposed here contains interdisciplinary methodology beyond the mainstream in condensed matter physics ranging from quantum information to quantum optics. The project has three principal objectives each of which would represent a major contribution to the field:
O1. To describe the dynamics of a interacting, disordered many-body systems when coupled to external baths.
O2. To perform a full characterization of spin and energy transport in their non-equilibrium steady state.
O3. To explore the system capabilities as steady state thermal machine from a systematic microscopic perspective.
This will be the first comprehensive study of the open system phenomenology of disordered interacting many-body
systems. It will also allow for the systematic study of energy and spin transport and the exploration of the potential of these systems as steady state thermal machines. In order to successfully carry out the work proposed here, the applicant will build a world class team at Trinity College Dublin. Due to his track record and interdisciplinary background in many-body physics, quantum information and statistical mechanics combined with his personal drive and ambition the applicant is in a formidable position to successfully undertake this task with the platform provided by this ERC Starting Grant.
Summary
This research proposal focuses on the open quantum system dynamics of disordered and interacting many- body systems coupled to external baths. The dynamics of systems which contain both disorder and interactions are currently under intense theoretical investigation in condensed matter physics due to the discovery of a new phase of matter known as many-body localization. With the experimental realization of such systems in mind, this proposal addresses an essential issue which is to understand how coupling to external degrees of freedom influences dynamics. These systems are intrinsically complex and lie beyond the unitary closed system paradigm, so the research proposed here contains interdisciplinary methodology beyond the mainstream in condensed matter physics ranging from quantum information to quantum optics. The project has three principal objectives each of which would represent a major contribution to the field:
O1. To describe the dynamics of a interacting, disordered many-body systems when coupled to external baths.
O2. To perform a full characterization of spin and energy transport in their non-equilibrium steady state.
O3. To explore the system capabilities as steady state thermal machine from a systematic microscopic perspective.
This will be the first comprehensive study of the open system phenomenology of disordered interacting many-body
systems. It will also allow for the systematic study of energy and spin transport and the exploration of the potential of these systems as steady state thermal machines. In order to successfully carry out the work proposed here, the applicant will build a world class team at Trinity College Dublin. Due to his track record and interdisciplinary background in many-body physics, quantum information and statistical mechanics combined with his personal drive and ambition the applicant is in a formidable position to successfully undertake this task with the platform provided by this ERC Starting Grant.
Max ERC Funding
1 333 325 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-07-01, End date: 2023-06-30
Project acronym SUPERSTARS
Project Type Ia supernovae: from explosions to cosmology
Researcher (PI) Kate MAGUIRE
Host Institution (HI) THE PROVOST, FELLOWS, FOUNDATION SCHOLARS & THE OTHER MEMBERS OF BOARD, OF THE COLLEGE OF THE HOLY & UNDIVIDED TRINITY OF QUEEN ELIZABETH NEAR DUBLIN
Country Ireland
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), PE9, ERC-2017-STG
Summary Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) are the incredibly luminous deaths of white dwarfs in binaries. They play a vital role in chemical enrichment, galaxy feedback, stellar evolution, and were instrumental in the discovery of dark energy. However, what are the progenitor systems of SNe Ia, and how they explode remains a mystery. My recent work has concluded the controversial result that there may be more than one way to produce SNe Ia. As SN Ia cosmology samples reach higher precision, understanding subtle differences in their properties becomes increasingly important. A surprising diversity in white-dwarf explosions has also been uncovered, with a much wider-than-expected range in luminosities, light-curve timescales and spectral properties. A key open question is ‘What explosion mechanisms result in normal SNe Ia compared to more exotic transients?’
My team will use novel early-time observations (within hours of explosion) of 100 SNe Ia in a volume-limited search (<75 Mpc). The targets will come from the ATLAS and Pan-STARRS surveys that will provide unprecedented sky coverage and cadence (>20000 square degrees, up to four times a night). These data will be combined with key progenitor diagnostics of each SN (companion interaction, circumstellar material, central density studies). The observed zoo of transients predicted to result from white-dwarf explosions (He-shell explosions, tidal-disruption events, violent mergers) will also be investigated, with the goal of constraining the mechanisms by which white dwarfs can explode. My access to ATLAS/Pan-STARRS and my previous experience puts me in a unique position to obtain ‘day-zero’ light curves, rapid spectroscopic follow-up, and late-time observations. The data will be analysed with detailed spectral modelling to unveil the progenitors and diversity of SNe Ia. This project is timely with the potential for significant breakthroughs to be made before the start of the next-generation ‘transient machine’, LSST in ~2021.
Summary
Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) are the incredibly luminous deaths of white dwarfs in binaries. They play a vital role in chemical enrichment, galaxy feedback, stellar evolution, and were instrumental in the discovery of dark energy. However, what are the progenitor systems of SNe Ia, and how they explode remains a mystery. My recent work has concluded the controversial result that there may be more than one way to produce SNe Ia. As SN Ia cosmology samples reach higher precision, understanding subtle differences in their properties becomes increasingly important. A surprising diversity in white-dwarf explosions has also been uncovered, with a much wider-than-expected range in luminosities, light-curve timescales and spectral properties. A key open question is ‘What explosion mechanisms result in normal SNe Ia compared to more exotic transients?’
My team will use novel early-time observations (within hours of explosion) of 100 SNe Ia in a volume-limited search (<75 Mpc). The targets will come from the ATLAS and Pan-STARRS surveys that will provide unprecedented sky coverage and cadence (>20000 square degrees, up to four times a night). These data will be combined with key progenitor diagnostics of each SN (companion interaction, circumstellar material, central density studies). The observed zoo of transients predicted to result from white-dwarf explosions (He-shell explosions, tidal-disruption events, violent mergers) will also be investigated, with the goal of constraining the mechanisms by which white dwarfs can explode. My access to ATLAS/Pan-STARRS and my previous experience puts me in a unique position to obtain ‘day-zero’ light curves, rapid spectroscopic follow-up, and late-time observations. The data will be analysed with detailed spectral modelling to unveil the progenitors and diversity of SNe Ia. This project is timely with the potential for significant breakthroughs to be made before the start of the next-generation ‘transient machine’, LSST in ~2021.
Max ERC Funding
1 876 496 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-06-01, End date: 2023-05-31
Project acronym THE FALL
Project The Fall of 1200BC: The role of migration and conflict in social crises at end of the Bronze Age in South-eastern Europe
Researcher (PI) Barry MOLLOY
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN, NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND, DUBLIN
Country Ireland
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH6, ERC-2017-COG
Summary This project explores changes in migration and conflict at the end of the Bronze Age (ca.1300-1000 BC) and their relevance for understanding the collapse of Europe’s first urban civilisation in the Aegean and proto-urban groups of the Balkans. The objective is to uncover the human face of this turning point in European prehistory by directly tracing the movement of people and the spread of new social practices across cultural boundaries. Hotly debated ancient tales of migrations are tested for the first time using recent advances in genetic and isotopic methods that can measure human mobility. Combined with mortuary research, this will precisely define relations between personal mobility and status, gender, identity and health to explore social scenarios in which people moved between groups.
To better understand the context of mobility, the project also evaluates social networks through which cultural traditions moved within and between distinct societies. For this purpose, regionally particular ways for making and using objects are analysed to explore how practices were exchanged and how types of objects shaped, and were shaped by, their new contexts of use. Metalwork is chosen for this research because new forms came to be widely shared across the region during the crisis, and we can employ a novel suite of analytic methods that explore how this material exposes wider social changes.
As personal and cultural mobility took place in social landscapes, the changing strategies for controlling access and mobility in settlement organisation are next explored. The character and causes of conflicts arising through these diverse venues for interaction are identified and we assess if they were catalysts for, or consequences of, unstable social systems.
THE FALL uses new primary research to test how this interplay between local developments, cultural transmissions and movement of people shaped the processes and events leading to the collapse of these early complex societies
Summary
This project explores changes in migration and conflict at the end of the Bronze Age (ca.1300-1000 BC) and their relevance for understanding the collapse of Europe’s first urban civilisation in the Aegean and proto-urban groups of the Balkans. The objective is to uncover the human face of this turning point in European prehistory by directly tracing the movement of people and the spread of new social practices across cultural boundaries. Hotly debated ancient tales of migrations are tested for the first time using recent advances in genetic and isotopic methods that can measure human mobility. Combined with mortuary research, this will precisely define relations between personal mobility and status, gender, identity and health to explore social scenarios in which people moved between groups.
To better understand the context of mobility, the project also evaluates social networks through which cultural traditions moved within and between distinct societies. For this purpose, regionally particular ways for making and using objects are analysed to explore how practices were exchanged and how types of objects shaped, and were shaped by, their new contexts of use. Metalwork is chosen for this research because new forms came to be widely shared across the region during the crisis, and we can employ a novel suite of analytic methods that explore how this material exposes wider social changes.
As personal and cultural mobility took place in social landscapes, the changing strategies for controlling access and mobility in settlement organisation are next explored. The character and causes of conflicts arising through these diverse venues for interaction are identified and we assess if they were catalysts for, or consequences of, unstable social systems.
THE FALL uses new primary research to test how this interplay between local developments, cultural transmissions and movement of people shaped the processes and events leading to the collapse of these early complex societies
Max ERC Funding
1 998 779 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-04-01, End date: 2023-03-31
